


The Journey That Mattered

by scotchplaid



Series: The Sweetwater Series [1]
Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-17 04:41:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 163,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3515732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scotchplaid/pseuds/scotchplaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>B&W AU set in Dakota Territory in the 1880s.  A horse opera with all the contrivances, prostitutes with hearts of gold, mustache-twirling villains, plus your usual assortment of cowboys and broken-down saloons -- with a little WH13 supernaturalism thrown in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally posted at FanFiction.net. I make no claim for authenticity. My knowledge of the American West mainly comes from the reading of a lot of westerns (Louis L'Amour, Max Brand, Luke Short, etc.) and a quick read of Wikipedia entries on nineteenth century clothing, applicances, mores, and so forth. The sequel, or continuation as I prefer to call it, of this fic is ongoing at FF.net, and once I finish it, I'll post it here, too. For those of you who've read the original, this should be substantially the same. I tried to iron out some of the awkward writing as well as ensure better consistency between the chapters, but you may end up being the better judge of that.

Sweetwater had the same hopeful, optimistic ring that the names of so many other dusty prairie towns had, Clear Lake, Blue Spring, Pleasant Valley, and, just like those others, the reality of its setting belied its name. As Myka surveyed the cluster of buildings in the center of the town with their weathered wood and peeling paint and then turned her attention to the endless grasslands, nearly gray under the afternoon sun, she saw nothing that suggested any bountiful supply of water, sweet or otherwise. Her father was paying the man he had hired to cart them and their few belongings from the train station to the  _Journal_ 's home, a worn building that housed both the paper's office and press and their living quarters. With one last glance at the quiet main street, Myka entered their new home, reminding herself that she needed to accept Sweetwater with an open mind just as she hoped the town would accept her and her father. This was their fresh start (yet again), and the disappointments of the past had to be left behind.

Someone had taken the time to clean the rooms. The floors were swept and the corners were free of cobwebs. She inspected the printing press, which, although old, looked to be in working order. There were three rooms in the back, a parlor furnished with a few pieces of well-worn furniture, the kitchen with its undoubtedly idiosyncratic range that Myka would have to learn to master, and the bedroom. She and her father had occupied smaller, worse places, and at least there was an alcove off the kitchen where she could sleep. Turning back toward the office, she saw her father sitting at the editor's desk, sipping from his ever-present flask.

"What do you think, Myka? Are we going to be a beacon of light for this community? Be the voice of democracy, of the rights of man?" 

His words weren't slurred, but Myka could hear the familiar echo of self-loathing. He would continue drinking through the day, she knew, lost in memories of happier times, when her mother was still alive and he was publishing articles and editorials that he was proud of, that he believed might lead to change if he repeatedly dinned his message in his readers' ears. But if Warren Bering maintained that he hadn't grown smaller over the years, the papers had. Myka dimly remembered living in a big house where sunshine poured through the windows and she could curl up in an armchair in the library and read about knights errant and princes in disguise (she never had much use for stories about princesses). She remembered the noise and energy of a city and her father coming home, talking animatedly to her mother about his meetings with the city council and important businessmen. But he never forgot, in whatever excitement had followed him home, to sweep up her and her sister Tracy and kiss them soundly on their cheeks. Myka would bury her head in his neck, inhaling the scents of peppermint and tobacco. The joy in the Bering household, however, had disappeared long ago, and the cities had dwindled to towns, and her father's pride lay at the bottom of the bottles that he tried, unsuccessfully, to hide in the drawers of his desk.

He was lucky to have been hired by the  _Journal_ ; the publisher of the last paper Warren Bering edited had fired him six months into the job. Their path to Dakota Territory had been a winding one. The Berings had left an agricultural community in California when the mayor had asked Myka's father to resign, displeased that he had taken the city treasurer, who was also the mayor’s brother-in-law, to task for some mismanaged accounts. That job had been followed by his accepting a position with a paper in a mining town in Nevada. There the town fathers had been incensed by an editorial deploring the working conditions of the mine, and Myka’s father had received his dismissal just days later. They had traveled to another paper in another mining town, this time in Arizona. Myka was cautiously hopeful that his tenure with this paper might be longer and happier – until it became all too clear that contaminants from the mining operations were poisoning people’s wells. When the inevitable editorials denouncing the mine owners’ carelessness began to be published, Myka started packing their trunks even before the dismissal letter could be delivered to the paper’s office. The  _Journal_ 's publisher, however, hadn't been put off by the idea of hiring a firebrand, noting only in the letter offering Myka’s father the job, that he expected the paper to provide a forum for 'lively discussion.' Myka could still recall the bold strokes of the signature, the thick vertical slashes that formed the H and the sweeping W of Wells.

"What's the big news of the day?" Her father demanded sourly of the room. "The Saturday social has been moved from Saturday to Wednesday? A new litter of kittens has been delivered in the Smiths' barn?"

"Shsh, shsh." Myka gingerly patted his shoulder. Although not a violent man even in his cups, Warren Bering had a drunk's surliness, and Myka had learned from experience to touch him with caution. "I need to go out for a little while. Will you be all right here?"

"Of course," he snapped.

Her shoes clattered loudly on the walk, the wooden planks warped and cracked with age. The heat was a wall that Myka felt she was pushing against, and the wind was whipping her skirts around her legs. She almost wished she wouldn't be able to speak with Mr. Wells; he would find her a sight, with her dress plastered to her sweaty skin and her hair a wind-tossed mess of curls. Her hair was hard to manage in the best conditions, and she knew that the wind had long since sprung it from the knot she had wrested it into in the morning. But she needed to discuss with the publisher his expectations for the paper. She didn't want a repetition of what had happened in Hartsville or Silver City, and though it would be more appropriate for her father to attempt this meeting, Myka could fall back on the excuses she had used for so many years with town officials and businessmen, "My father is under the weather and sent me in his place. . . . He's busy planning the next edition as we speak and asked if I would meet with you." She was so busy rehearsing what she would say to Mr. Wells that she rocked back on her heels with a gasp when a man suddenly appeared in front of her.

He shot out a hand to steady her. "Sorry, miss," he said with an engaging grin as he doffed his hat, "but I know everybody in this town, and no one this pretty has graced Sweetwater since. . . ." He stopped and searched for the comparison, finally giving her a boyish shrug. "Well, in a long time."

Myka took in the star on his vest and peered into the building he had exited. At the back she could make out a series of iron bars and, behind them, a small cot. She was in front of Sweetwater's jail. She wondered how soon it would be before she would have to come to the jail to retrieve her father after sleeping off a drunk. But this man had a kind face and warm brown eyes, she didn't think he would pity her, like some of the lawmen had, or, worse, threaten her that the next time her father would wake up and find himself on a train or coach out of town. "You must be the –"

"Pete Lattimer. The law in town when there's call for it."

Myka blushed under his admiring gaze. Nervously clearing her throat, she said, "I'm Myka Bering. My father's the new editor of the  _Journal_."

The sheriff rounded his lips in an O, but his whistle, if he whistled, was a silent one. "The new newspaperman. We knew you were coming but didn't know when." He waved his arm toward the dusty street and the darkened doorways of the buildings on either side. In any town, there were usually a few old men passing the time outside the general store, spitting tobacco and regaling each other with tall tales heard a million times before. But there were no men squatting on their heels, no children chasing each other down the walks. The chairs outside the barbershop were empty, and even the saloon was quiet. Above its doors was a sign, its lettering faded by the sun but still readable, the Rusty Spur.

"Usually we're a little livelier around here, but it's been awful hot and dry this summer," the sheriff said apologetically. He fingered his hat as he and Myka stood in an awkward silence. Bringing himself to with a jerk, he exclaimed, "You must think I have no manners. May I get you a glass of water or lemonade?" He nodded at the store across the street. "Can't promise you that it'll be cool, but it should cut down the dust."

"No, thank you." Myka had started to blush again at the sheriff's clumsy courtliness. "But if you could tell me where I might find Mr. Wells, I would appreciate it."

"Mr. Wells?" The sheriff was puzzled.

"H. Wells. I don't know whether the H stands for Herbert or Harold or, or Horatio." Myka noticed that her small joke, her very tiny joke, elicited no answering smile from the sheriff. "The publisher of the  _Journal_?" She added hurriedly.

"Oh," Sheriff Lattimer said. Then "Oh" again, this time louder and in recognition. "That H. Wells," he said, his face seizing in a grimace. "You must mean Mrs. Wells." He darted a quick look at the saloon, then glanced back at Myka. "We should get you out of the sun. Why don't you wait in the store while I try to find Mrs. Wells?"

H. Wells, their publisher, a woman? Although she was still revolving the novelty of it in her mind, Myka hadn't missed the significance of the sheriff's look at the saloon. Publisher and what? Card sharp? Bartender? Then Myka remembered what women usually did in a saloon. Surely not. Certain that her cheeks were flaming at this point, Myka hoped that her voice didn't betray her embarrassment. "If Mrs. Wells is in that . . . establishment then that is where I'll find her." Gathering up her skirts, she brushed past the sheriff and started crossing the street.

"Ah. . . .geez. . . ah, Miss Bering?" The sheriff loped ahead of her, backpedaling as she continued toward the saloon undeterred. "Really, the Rusty Spur is no place for a lady."

She stopped, looking at him sternly. She didn't know this Mrs. Wells, but she felt insulted on her behalf. "Sheriff Lattimer, are you implying that Mrs. Wells isn't a lady?"

He swept off his hat and frantically scratched his head, as if he dug hard enough he might be able to pull out the proper response. "Ah, no, you see, Mrs. Wells, she's a lady. Just, uh, a different kind of one."

"And how is she different?"

"She's an English lady?" The sheriff managed to make the statement of fact sound like a question and his eyes pleaded with Myka to take his words as sufficient answer for why Mrs. Wells was to be found in the Rusty Spur and not some place more suitable.

Myka bit her lip to keep from smiling. It was perfectly acceptable for Mrs. Wells to while away her time in a saloon because she was English. How could she remain indignant in the face of such utter illogic? Pointing his finger at the side of his head and twirling it in a circle, the sheriff leaned in, saying, "The English, you know, they can be a little cuckoo."

"Cuckoo or no, I need to speak with Mrs. Wells." Once more Myka brushed past him and he scrambled to draw even with her. She had no intention of telling him that she had been in more saloons than she cared to count, a number of them considerably more disreputable looking than the Rusty Spur, helping her father home or, when he was too drunk to stand on his own power, relying on some good Samaritan to shoulder Warren Bering's gaunt frame and carry him home. Sometimes the good Samaritan had wanted Myka to express her gratitude in a more tangible form than a heartfelt "Thank you" and she had learned the effectiveness of a sharp jab of her elbow to the man's stomach or, if necessary, a swift thrust of her knee to his groin.

The sheriff cut in front of her to swing the door open, and Myka was accosted by the familiar smell of sawdust and stale beer. The bartender, a middle-aged man with a two-day beard and an apron that looked as though it had been worn three days too long, chatted with the saloon's lone patron, a man in a shiny black frock coat, an equally shiny black bowler hat on the seat next to him. A drummer, perhaps, waiting for the heat to break before heading onto the next town. The bag on the stool beside him carried something he would hawk to his future customers, patent medicines or ladies' accessories. Although there was nothing prepossessing about the saloon's interior, the floor looked relatively clean and the poker tables, while scarred and mismatched, were free of empty bottles. Myka surreptitiously moved her feet; they didn't stick to the floor. That was something. A stairway led to an upper level and hanging over the railing were two women. They were wearing close-fitting dresses with short skirts and low-cut bodices, and they were avidly watching her and the sheriff. Myka couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at the sheriff as a third woman squeezed herself between the other two and waved down at him.

"Pete! Pete!" She called, running down the steps and launching herself at the sheriff.

Smiling tightly, the sheriff tried to remove himself from the woman's enthusiastic greeting. "Whoa, whoa," he said, trying to free his neck from the arms the girl had clasped around it, shooting agonized glances at Myka, who surveyed the floor with great interest. "Maggie, uh, Miss Anderson, would you—"

Maggie slapped him playfully. "Miss Anderson! That's not what you called me last night. It was 'Oh, Maggie' this and 'Oh, Maggie' that." She trailed off, taking in Myka in one long, coolly assessing look. "Who do you have with you, Petey?"

Petey. Laughter bubbled wildly in Myka's throat, but she forced it down. A last-chance job in a small town at the end of the universe where their publisher ran a whorehouse and she was being sized up by this brazen slip of a girl – and found wanting. Myka began to choke on the absurdity of it and brought her hand to her lips. The sheriff firmly set Maggie down and snapped his fingers at the bartender, "Freddie, a glass of water here, please." Turning to Maggie, he said pleasantly but with an underlying steeliness that even Myka heard through her coughing, "Go get Mrs. Wells."

Maggie did as he said but not without a disgusted flounce and a muttered "Why didn't you just say you were here on business?"

The bartender brought over a glass of water and Myka smiled her thanks. He grinned back at her until he caught a warning look from the sheriff, which had him speedily returning to the bar. The drummer, who had been idly running his eyes over Myka, just as swiftly picked up his conversation with Freddie where they had left it off. The sheriff tapped his hat in frustration. Seeing the two women still watching them from upstairs, he said, "Sallie, Glenda. Warm day, isn't it?" They tittered at his discomfort, and then their giggles died away as a woman emerged from an office in the back of the room.

At first, Myka didn't notice her. She was busy gulping down the water, which was warm and brassy-tasting but wet. But she felt the somnolence that had lain over the room begin to lift, as if an electric charge had been shot through the saloon. Resisting the temptation to see if her skin was prickling into goose bumps, she raised her eyes as the woman approached them. The woman was neither tall nor imposing and was dressed plainly in a black skirt and a wine-colored blouse, but she carried herself with an air of authority and when she spoke, she spoke with the confidence of someone who expected people to listen to her. "Sheriff Lattimer, you wished to see me?"

Her presence seemed to have an effect even on the sheriff, who stopped fidgeting with his hat and glancing distractedly around the room and fixed his unhappy look on her. "Miss Bering wanted to see you, and she insisted on coming in."

"We are a business, Sheriff," she said, amused. "Our doors are open to everyone." Turning to Myka, she said, "You have me at a disadvantage, Miss Bering."

It wasn't only the accent, although the way she lingered over certain words, drawing them out, had a certain richness to it. But Myka had heard English accents before, some plummier than this woman's. Some might liken the woman's voice to honey, and while Myka might concede the smoothness, she recoiled at the thought that anyone's voice could convey that much sweetness. The image that came to Myka's mind was an apple. The woman's voice felt smooth and round and firm, the way an apple felt in Myka's hand. And like an apple, Myka instinctively wanted to cup it, to curl her fingers around it. But who could hold the sound of someone's voice in her hand? It would be like trying to capture "You have me at a disadvantage" between her two hands like a firefly and hold it to her ear. It was nonsensical, and the only reason she was having such a flight of fancy was because she was dizzy from the heat. She wanted to sit down, but she couldn't betray any sign of weakness in front of the  _Journal_ 's publisher. The Berings' weaknesses would become all too apparent later on.

Wincing at her sudden hoarseness, Myka said, "I'm Warren Bering's daughter" and looked at Mrs. Wells as steadily as she could. But that carried its own dangers since Mrs. Wells' eyes were so dark that pupils were barely discernible from irises, and Myka was overwhelmed by the feeling that if she didn't look away she would drown. "He's, he's the new editor of the  _Journal_ ," she heard herself stammering.

"Yes, I'm aware of that," Mrs. Wells said, amusement threading through her voice again. Then her hand slid against Myka's, smaller and, Myka noticed with mortification, far better tended to than her own, but capable of a surprisingly sturdy grip, and they were shaking hands like two businessmen closing a deal. "I'm Helena Wells."


	2. Chapter 2

Helena had suggested they go to the _Journal_ 's office and discuss her expectations for the paper there. She wanted to meet Warren Bering as well, but Myka shifted her feet and looked away and said that the long train ride had exhausted her father. Besides their living quarters were a mess, overflowing with trunks and boxes. Helen had immediately apologized, annoyed with herself for making such a gaffe. Granted she hadn't expected the Berings to arrive as soon as they did, but that was no excuse for thinking they would be ready for guests, even if one of them was Mr. Bering's employer.

But they couldn't stay here either. Helena had little respect for the conventions that regarded saloons and whorehouses as necessary evils. Oftentimes more business was conducted where men drank and otherwise enjoyed themselves than in oak-paneled boardrooms. Yet she recognized her obligation to remove Myka from the Rusty Spur as soon as possible, and if she had been tempted to forget, she had the disapproving face of Sheriff Lattimer in front of her.

"Sheriff, I believe you'll find some of Leena's sugar cookies in my office." Helena never tired of seeing how quickly the sheriff's expression could change when cookies were mentioned. Replacing the pained look he wore whenever he encountered Helena in the saloon, doubly pained this time because he was accompanied by Myka, was the greedy anticipation of a five-year-old child. "Please rest assured that I will take good care of Miss Bering."

Torn between the cookies and his desire to guard Myka's virtue, which Helena wanted to tell him was in no danger of being threatened, the sheriff stared doubtfully at her until Myka smiled her encouragement. "I'll be all right. Thank you so much for your help, Sheriff Lattimer."

After another doubtful look at Helena, the sheriff left Myka's side only to stop a few feet away and ask, "You won't mind if I drop by sometime and check in on you and your father, will you?" Myka shook her head, her cheeks reddening, and Helena resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. It was unprecedented for the sheriff to let anyone slow his progress when food was in sight, but marvel though that was, Helena had no patience for any budding romance between the town's lawman and her new editor's daughter.

Though she could understand his interest. Myka was pretty. Very pretty, Helena acknowledged. Other women might despair over the profusion of curls, Helena suspected that Myka herself might be one of those women, but Helena liked how her hair lifted in the breeze eddying at the Spur's entrance and how occasional strands trailed across Myka's jaw. Myka would tuck the errant hair behind her ear only to have it spring out and feather against her skin. Her hair was a dull brown in the Spur's interior, but Helena knew that it would display flashes of gold and red in the sunlight. Myka probably rued its plainness, wishing, like many brunettes, that it was blond instead. Almost absently, Helena gave her own hair a loving pat. Clearly ill at ease, eyes roaming everywhere but touching on nothing, most especially Helena, Myka would cut a graceful figure were she more relaxed. She was tall but carried herself well, her back straight and her shoulders showing no inclination to slump. Myka's dress was old-fashioned in style, but it couldn't disguise a figure that was slender yet womanly, in Helena's estimation, professional estimation, of course.

Helena suppressed a sigh. Really, the decision had been made for her, there was only one place they could go. "Miss Bering, if you would accompany me home, I believe we might be more comfortable there." Helena didn't like to conduct business in her home. She had spent too many years having to treat her various lodgings as places of business, and now that she had a true home, a two-story brick house that she had purchased shortly upon arriving in Sweetwater and spent a considerable amount of money redesigning to her liking, she wanted to keep the daily concerns that came with running a saloon and a few women of pleasure away from it. Until the _Journal_ 's former editor decided to retire to live with his daughter in Iowa, she hadn't had to worry about the paper. While Ralph Sanderson's command of basic grammar and punctuation wasn't all that she could have hoped for, he showed himself to be an adept salesman of the paper, and when given a choice between a graceful style and a profit, Helena would usually choose the latter. Which made her decision to hire Warren Bering all the more impulsive. But there had been something about his letter of inquiry, his passion for providing his readers with a balanced account of events important to them, his desire to encourage them to express their views – it had stirred Helena's heart and though she wasn't sure how deeply reasoned an article on crop conditions or the minutes of the latest town council meeting needed to be, she had indulged in a bit of unwonted idealism to think that the citizens of Sweetwater might benefit from it.

She raised her parasol as soon as the Spur's doors swung closed behind them. Any vanity she might have had about her appearance had hardened over the years to an unsentimental recognition of which of her features were attractive and which weren't. And the fairness of her skin, particularly in contrast with the darkness of her coloring, had always been a source of compliments. Even now, when she could let her skin turn leathery under the sun if she wished, she continued to protect it; although she hadn't had to rely on the delicacy of her complexion to win her any favors recently, there was no sense in damaging an asset. Sidling a look at Myka, Helena mused that perhaps Miss Bering ought to give some thought to guarding her skin from the sun, even though she had to admit that the scattering of freckles across Myka's cheeks and nose was charming. Holding her parasol higher and closer to Myka, Helena offered, "Would you like to share? It's not much, but it does provide some relief."

Myka's eyes widened, almost in alarm, Helena thought. "Thank you but no, Mrs. Wells. I'm fine."

Helena retracted her parasol, nettled at the rebuff. Proper young women like Miss Bering weren't accustomed to rubbing elbows with saloonkeepers and madams. Having been a proper young woman herself once upon a time, Helena had a fair idea of the thoughts that must be running through Myka's mind. And for the first time in a very long while, Helena felt ashamed, seeing herself from Myka's perspective. Nice brick homes and parasols to protect her skin and clothes made for her and shipped straight from New York (although Myka didn't know that) – how did the saying go? You couldn't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. Helena knew that Myka saw her as no better, and in all probability worse, than the prostitutes who worked for her.

Seeing her home come into view, Helena didn't feel her usual surge of pleasure. This afternoon, in Myka's presence, she saw only its flaws. Grand for Sweetwater certainly, it would be nondescript in a city, neither large nor distinguished, the lawn brown, and the shade trees spindly, the shadows they cast mottled with sunlight. Reflecting on how she had acquired the home, bought on the cheap from the former president of Sweetwater's bank, who was only two steps ahead of a mob of angry, defrauded customers, she found no humor in it as she ordinarily did. She had taken advantage of someone else's misfortune and, moreover, deprived the town of having the man brought to justice; he had taken her cash and almost literally leapt onto the train leaving for Chicago. Opening the gate to the stone walkway leading to the front door, Helena said brusquely, "This way, if you please, Miss Bering."

Leena was at the top of the stairs to the second floor when Helena and Myka entered the foyer. "Hel – Mrs. Wells," she caught herself. She curiously but discreetly surveyed Myka as she descended.

"This is Miss Bering," Helena said as Leena took her parasol and placed it in a stand. "Her father is the new editor of the _Journal_." Leena knew everything about the _Journal_ just as she knew most everything there was to know about Helena, but this was the fiction they had decided upon when they arrived in Sweetwater, that Leena was Helena's housekeeper. It answered the question of why a white woman would be traveling in the company of a black woman and, just as importantly, excused the familiarity with which they treated one another, but Helena hated the necessity for the pretense, and she bridled at the submissiveness Leena felt called upon to display on the rare occasions when Helena brought home a guest. Helena looked at Myka, expecting her to be studiously indifferent to Leena's presence, as if she were no more important or worthy of notice than the umbrella stand, or worse, gape-mouthed with astonishment at the sight of a black woman. But Myka was neither. She was regarding Leena with interest, yes, but with no hint of condescension.

Smiling warmly, Myka said, "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

Didn't catch it because Helena hadn't thought to mention it. She burned with embarrassment as Leena said quietly, "My name is Leena, Miss Bering."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Leena."

Turning to Helena, Leena prompted her, "Refreshments in the parlor, Mrs. Wells?" Helena didn't miss the sardonic gleam in her eyes, although nothing could be read from Leena's carefully schooled expression; she was merely the housekeeper awaiting her mistress's order.

"Yes, please." Helena cast an irritated glance at her back as Leena retreated down the hall toward the kitchen. Turning to usher her guest into the parlor, Helena glimpsed Myka crossing the foyer into the library. She followed, noticing how reverently Myka approached the bookshelves, touching the volumes lightly, disbelievingly. She began to work one of the books out from the shelf but stopped, spinning around with her hand clapped to her mouth.

"Please forgive me, Mrs. Wells. I had no business coming in here without your permission. But it's so lovely, and you have so many books. . . “ she trailed off, mesmerized.

Helena couldn't help but smile at Myka's obvious delight. "Feel free to borrow as many as you'd like."

Myka stepped closer, grinning so broadly that Helena feared she might be enveloped in a hug. Stiffening in advance of the embrace, Helena waited to be crushed against Myka's faded dress only to watch as she whirled away, coltishly, long limbs appearing to move independently of one another. Myka must have been like this as a girl, all elbows and knees and flying curls, and Helena wondered with a sadness the years hadn't blunted if Christina had shown the same endearing awkwardness, if she had looked as flushed and happy. Myka, with a shy look at Helena, placed a book in the crook of her arm when her attention was drawn to the books on the shelf above her. "Baudelaire in French and Goethe in German." She glanced at Helena for confirmation that her pronunciation was correct. "How many languages do you know, Mrs. Wells?"

"I have a passing acquaintance with several but know only a few well enough to read." Though Helena was grateful to be able to steer her thoughts away from Christina, memories of sitting in her father's library with a succession of tutors, each more pedantic than the last, were hardly more pleasant. How she had wanted to attend school like Charles, but their father had his own ideas of what was the appropriate education for a girl of her station. The bookshelves, the large mahogany desk in front of the windows at the back of the room, the fireplace – it struck Helena that she had created a facsimile of her father's library in a house thousands of miles away. But she was the one who determined what books it held, how far afield her desire for knowledge would take her.

Gesturing at the shelves lining the walls, Myka asked, "Just what other treasures do you have in here?"

"I leave that to you to find out, Miss Bering." Helena kept her eyes from straying to the shelves in the far corner of the room, which held a collection of erotica. While Myka's expression as she stared at the books was not unlike Sheriff Lattimer's when cookies were present, Helena suspected that it would take Myka quite some time before she read her way to the 'naughty pictures' section of the library.

Leena entered then, carrying a tray heavy with plates of finger sandwiches and cookies and a dainty teapot that Helena didn't even know she had. The library wasn't designed to host an afternoon tea, but between her and Leena they managed to arrange chairs and side tables so that she and Myka were facing each other, although their tea cups and plates were at an awkward reach. Helena hadn’t given a thought to whether it was proper to help Leena in guiding the chairs across the thick oriental rugs, and Myka hadn't seemed to find it strange that Helena was working with her housekeeper rather than waiting for Leena to complete the rearranging herself. Myka had set her book down and was assisting Leena to divest the tray of its china, pouring tea into the cups and using a pair of tongs that Helena had last seen in the sugar bowl to place sandwiches and cookies on individual plates.

'That will be all, Leena' hovered on Helena's lips until she realized how ridiculous that would sound with them both slightly out of breath from pushing the chairs together. This was not the way Helena's mother had organized the afternoon tea; it was always held at the same time in the same room. Sandwiches were cut at precise angles and the tea, always Earl Grey, was served at a certain temperature. Woe betide the poor servant who erred on any of these points. In a voice chill enough to ice over the steaming tea, Mrs. Wells would thank the poor quaking girl for her efforts and then ensure that she was banished to the laundry.

"Would you like something besides tea, Miss Bering?" Leena asked, the corners of her mouth twitching impishly. "Mrs. Wells always prefers her tea hot, but I have a pitcher of lemon water that works wonders on a day like today."

Helena looked up at Leena from underneath her eyelashes. Prefers her tea hot, as if she made it all day every day for her. Helena couldn't remember the last time Leena had made her tea. Mornings Helena was the one who filled the kettle and warmed it on the stove. "Hot tea is perfect, Leena. Thank you," Myka said sweetly, blowing across the top of her cup.

"Please let me know if there's anything else, Mrs. Wells." Leena only smiled as Helena gave her a meaningful look. Glimpsing the book that Myka had tucked between her and the side of her chair, Leena added, "I'm glad Mrs. Wells has found someone who shares her love of books." Leena's smile didn't waver although Helena's stare had grown murderous in its intensity.

Myka's cheeks became rosy but whether that was because she was blushing yet again or from the heat of the tea, Helena couldn't tell. Gently setting the cup on its saucer, Myka said, "My father and I would appreciate knowing more about your expectations for the _Journal_. In your letter, you said that you wanted it to serve as a forum for 'lively discussion,' but that can mean different things to different people."

Helena bit appreciatively into one of the sandwiches. It was a plain butter sandwich, but Leena made the best bread and how she managed to keep butter from liquefying into a soup in this heat, let alone still taste nearly as creamy as when it was churned, was nothing short of miraculous. She would have to forgive her for the teasing in front of Myka. Tempted to devour the rest of the sandwich before responding, Helena recalled the example of her mother and politely finished her bite. "All I require is that what the paper publishes is accurate and not unduly biased. No one should take exception to that."

"But people do." Myka insisted quietly.

"You're referring to the last papers your father worked for, and you want to know if I will support him if something he writes creates a firestorm."

"Will you?"

"If he’s in the right." Seeing a flash of indignation in Myka's eyes," Helena said, "Which he will be, I'm sure, then yes, of course."

"That's what the _Beacon_ said. But the minute the mine owners began to protest that people would start agitating for better working conditions, the publisher demanded that my father retract the editorial, and when he wouldn't, the paper fired him. Workers were dying in that mine, Mrs. Wells. Basic safety precautions weren't being followed, and when the men complained, they were threatened with the loss of their jobs." Myka had reached for her cup and was holding it so tightly that Helena was afraid it might shatter between her fingers. “And as for the paper in Silver City, the mine owners were indifferent to the fact that their contamination of the water supply was poisoning the townspeople.”

"Papers are businesses, Miss Bering, and I have no doubt that the mine owners, if they didn't already own an interest in the paper, certainly brought financial pressure to bear on the _Beacon_ and the _Star_. I'm in no way supporting what they did, but I can appreciate the difficult situation they must have been in." Helena eyed another sandwich but saw that Myka hadn't even finished her cookie. She shouldn't add to her very obvious sins by being a glutton in front of her. "I own 100% of the _Journal_ , Miss Bering, and while I want my paper to make a profit, I am not dependent on its income. Should your father take an unpopular position, I will not crumble."

Myka looked heartened but not completely convinced. She absently traced the rim of her cup with her finger. "It would be difficult, I think, to be a businesswoman when so many of the business owners are men. In my very limited experience, I've found many of them to be impatient when they've had to interact with me rather than my father. They tended to belittle my opinion even though my father would say the exact same thing the next time they met."

Helena understood the point Myka was not-so-subtly making. "Yes, they can be overbearing and arrogant and unwilling to listen. But I've been accused of the same myself." She noted Myka's small smile. "I don't want to give the impression that there aren't powerful business interests in this part of the territory. There are, and they have definite ideas about what is important and how it should be communicated. But I know them well, and they haven't managed to make me knuckle under to them yet." Realizing she was going to sound boastful, she nonetheless couldn't hide the pride in her voice. "I'm a powerful business interest in my own right, Miss Bering, and though I know that you have to take my support on trust, please know that no one can force me to do something I don't want to do."

Myka rose, depositing her uneaten cookie and cup and saucer on the table. "Thank you, Mrs. Wells, for taking the time to talk with me. I'm sure I've taken up enough of your day, and I should see how my father is doing." She placed the book under her arm, and Helena saw enough of it to recognize that Myka had borrowed a copy of Dickens's _Hard Times_. How appropriate. She followed Myka to the door.

"I intend to visit the _Journal_ once you and your father have settled in, and I'll introduce you to some of the businessmen you'll be. . . working . . with." Butting heads with, more likely, Helena suspected. Oddly enough, however, she looked forward to the complaints that would be coming her way about the new editor of the paper and his undoubtedly "newfangled" ideas. Life in Sweetwater had been dull as of late.

Myka hesitated in the doorway. "Was . . . is your husband from Sweetwater, Mrs. Wells?"

The phrasing had been uncertain but the curiosity in Myka's eyes was unabashed. Helena was struck by how light they were. Green, the soft pale green of spring in bloom. But there was nothing suggestive of gamboling lambs and bunny rabbits about Myka Bering. She was young and no doubt still innocent in the traditional sense but not naïve. She had recognized how unusual it was for a woman to be running any business, let alone a saloon, and she was asking Helena whether a Mr. Wells had been invented to lend her propriety. In the past Helena had fended off more discreet queries and usually gave no thought to the opinions people formed of her, but she found herself saying, "There is no Mr. Wells, Miss Bering, nor has there ever been, unless we're speaking of my father or brother."

Myka held her gaze, and this time no blush crept up her cheeks. "Then I'm at a loss for what brought you to Sweetwater, Mrs. Wells, because it seems too small to hold you."

Helena remembered the night three years ago when she had plaintively asked Leena where she was to go and Leena had opened a book of maps and, without looking, plunged her finger toward a great barren stretch of land in the center north of the continent. She wondered what Myka would say if she said 'Leena's finger on a map.' Instead she responded, "The spirit of adventure, I suppose, Miss Bering."

"Adventure," Myka repeated in a murmur. "Embracing change. . . ." She looked away from Helena toward the town, her face lovely in profile. "Good day, Mrs. Wells."

"Good day, Miss Bering." Helena watched as Myka passed through the gate, closing it behind her. She didn't realize that Leena was standing behind her until she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"I like her," Leena said.

Helena shrugged, assuming an indifference she didn't feel. "She's straightforward, I'll give her that. I can only hope that Sweetwater will be good to her and her father, it tends not to reward virtue."

Leena wasn't deceived. "I think she'll be good for you, Helena." But she didn't expand on her comment. Helena remained at the door, hearing faint clinking sounds from the library as Leena put the dishes back on the tray, and continued to look in the direction Myka had taken long after she disappeared from view.

 


	3. Chapter 3

Myka adapted to life in Sweetwater more quickly than she thought she would. Part of that had to do with her father. While he still nipped from his flask and squirreled away bottles brought home from the Rusty Spur, he was relatively sober most of the day and threw himself into running the _Journal_ with more enthusiasm than Myka had expected. When Helena Wells paid a visit to the office, he greeted her with a steady hand and eye and recommended some changes to the paper's style and content to which she readily agreed. As he described his vision for the paper, one that would make room for more local news as well as an expanded section for opinions on various issues of the day, Myka was proud of him. He wasn't quite the man she remembered from her childhood; he didn't speak with the same fire and, at times, he seemed unsure of himself in Helena's presence, but Helena appreciated his commitment to the paper, or so she said.

Those dark eyes took in everything, from the bundles of paper waiting to be fed into the press to the partial layout of the next issue. Helena's gaze frequently lighted on Myka, and Myka, though she tried to keep her attention fixed on her father, couldn't resist the pull of the other woman's interest. She no longer felt that she might drown when she met Helena's eyes, but she saw something in their depths that left her feeling restless and unsettled. She had been to Helena's home a few times since their first meeting, dropping off books she had borrowed and taking new ones with her. Helena had been warm and gracious, asking her how she was finding Sweetwater and chatting with her about the novels she had read, but Myka heard herself fumbling for words and desperately hoped that she was saying something intelligent. Walking around the library, she had noticed a photograph on the desk, which showed a man with Helena's dark eyes and hair standing behind two women sitting on a loveseat. One of the women was much older, the man's wife, while the other woman, girl really, appeared to be their daughter. Her resemblance to Helena was striking, the same oval-shaped face, the same set to her mouth and the same slight lift of her chin; her eyes narrowed in the way that Helena's would when she was amused. Perhaps the photographer had said something to make her smile or maybe the girl, like any adolescent, was enjoying her belief that she didn't so much obey her parents as humor them.

Myka blurted on one visit, "She's your niece?"

Helena's head snapped around, but she quietly answered, "Yes, my niece Christina."

"She's lovely. She looks like you." Myka prayed that she wasn't blushing but knew better from the sudden heat in her cheeks.

But Helena had turned away from the photograph, trailing her fingers along a row of books. "Her father, I'm sure, doesn't appreciate the likeness." Helena had said it wryly, but Myka sensed an old bitterness behind the comment.

Realizing that it was not a topic Helena cared to discuss, Myka didn't ask the questions raised by the photograph, but she couldn't help glancing at it every time she was in the library, wondering what had taken Helena so far away from her family. Myka acknowledged the envy that was mixed in with her curiosity. Having never been separated from her father for more than a few days, she wondered if Helena found the distance freeing or lonely. As if she knew that Myka's thoughts were about her and not the stack of books she held in the crook of her arm, Helena would occasionally turn a speculative look on her, as though she could hear all the questions racing through Myka's mind.

Myka had never felt so uneasy, been so jumpy around someone before and yet, at the same time, anxious to see her again. Myka's response made no sense to her, and she was alternately frustrated and disturbed that she had no answer for it. On the other hand, she never felt less than at home with Sheriff Lattimer. Or Pete, as he insisted she call him. "Even my jailbirds call me Pete," he joked. But she had learned from experience the costs of being overfamiliar with an unattached man so "Sheriff Lattimer" or "Mr. Lattimer" he remained. He stopped by nearly every day, and if Myka's father swayed a little when he led Pete into the parlor or smelled of whiskey, Pete didn't seem to take notice. Pete would sit on the high-backed sofa with its tilted cushions, boots firmly planted on the floor to prevent himself from sliding off, and ask after Myka's day. Myka knew her skills as a cook were modest at best but she always tried to have some extra sweet on hand for when Pete visited, and no matter that it might be lopsided or runny or burned, he was always appreciative. She wasn't sure that he was courting her, but her father was certain of Pete's intentions, growling good-naturedly about her "suitor" and muttering just loudly enough for Myka to hear that "he's a damn sight better than that Martino fella."

Myka was never discomfited meeting Pete's eyes. They were almost as dark as Helena's, but Myka imagined that she could see through them to the essence of Pete himself, loyal, steadfast, kind. He might poke fun at his being the "law in Sweetwater," but Myka had seen him more than once defuse an argument between two cowboys stumbling out of the Rusty Spur, talking a stream of nonsense that had them blinking at him rather than each other as he nimbly removed their guns from their holsters. She looked forward to his visits, and a part of her, one which fretted about when her father's drinking or a flap about something published in the _Journal_ would get him fired, screamed at her not to let such a good man get away. But no matter how warmly he looked at her – when he thought she wouldn't notice – or how sincerely he offered her a compliment, she couldn't bring herself to encourage his pursuit of her. Each time that Pete hinted he would enjoy taking her out for an evening stroll, she would jump up from her chair and dart about the parlor, picking up their cups and saucers and then enter the _Journal_ ’s office to check after her father. Afterward she would return to her chair and take up her sewing, which, like cooking, she labored over rather than enjoyed, and change the topic of conversation from how pleasant the night air was to the newest desperadoes on Pete's most wanted list. Eventually Pete would rise from the sofa, stiff from having locked his knees to keep his seat on the cushion, and bid her, and a loudly snoring Mr. Bering, good night.

Myka became acquainted with other residents of Sweetwater as well, the proprietor of the general store, the livery owner and his wife, the telegraph operator. Some stopped by the _Journal_ 's office out of curiosity, but others she met at Sweetwater's church, a clapboard structure on the opposite end of town from the railroad station and, in an irony of ironies, not far from Helena’s home. She never missed the Sunday service, and she was usually able to coax her father into joining her. They would sit in a pew toward the middle, and Myka had a friendly greeting for the families as they went down the aisle or took seats in nearby pews. She would add her voice to the rest of the congregation's as they toiled through the hymns, and she would hold her Bible open and bend her head attentively as the pastor intoned his sermon. If her father's head began to loll, she would nudge him awake. But she couldn't have said which was her favorite hymn to sing or provided an opinion on the sermon other than her standard "It gave me food for thought" because her mind was always elsewhere. Myka attended the church not because she was looking for spiritual insight or solace – she had stopped looking for those long ago – but because it would make her and her father part of the community more quickly, and it would be harder for the people who saw them every Sunday to let them be run out of town. At least that was her hope.

So Myka moved her lips in prayer, but she was thinking about the content for the next issue of the _Journal_ or the latest book she had borrowed from Helena's library. Occasionally she daydreamed about the man who, while not rescuing her from her father, would be willing to share the burden of caring for him with her. She never saw his features with any clarity and other than being a "good provider" she had no words to describe him, but she assumed that was only because she had not yet met him. More and more frequently, however, her thoughts were taken up with Helena and the endless questions she had about her. Sometimes as Myka drifted from thought to thought, one preoccupation would blur into another, and the man of her dreams would become more distinct, suddenly having dark hair and dark eyes, and for a moment she might think this future husband could be Pete until the eyes became less kind and more sardonic and she would recognize Helena in his faintly haughty regard. When she first had that realization, she had let her Bible crash to the floor, waking up her father and drawing to her the attention of everyone in the church. Now when thoughts of Helena would intrude into her daydreams, Myka told herself, not without a certain pleasure in the rigor of her own sternness, that it was only because she could fashion no one worthier of her devotion than another version of Sam Martino, and Helena, with a character as interesting as it was disreputable, reminded her of him.

When Sunday worship ended and Myka and her father would join the others filing toward the door, she would sometimes see Helena and Leena in a pew at the back of the church, Helena elegantly attired as always, the dresses modest in color and design but fitted perfectly to her. Occasionally some of the girls from the Rusty Spur would be with them, and Myka noticed how the good ladies of the congregation would hold their skirts aside and look anywhere but at the pew they occupied. She always made it a point to stop for a moment and exchange greetings with Helena and Leena, acknowledging the girls as well. Helena's eyes would track the wide circuit the other ladies made around them, and when she would turn her head in response to Myka's hello, her eyes danced with a wicked glint and her inquiries after Myka's health carried a mocking edge, but her decorum rarely slipped. Except one Sunday when the pastor unexpectedly veered from a story of Paul to a harangue about Mary Magdalene, and Myka counted not one or two but all four of the Spur's girls sitting next to Helena and Leena. When Myka was chatting with them later, Helena had said, a crooked smile on her lips, "Jesus may have forgiven poor Mary, but I do believe Pastor Wallace is still on the fence. What do you think, Miss Bering?" Leena had clucked disapprovingly and Myka, much to her chagrin, blushed in response.

Myka's father had taken her arm then, urging her none too gently away from Helena. "I know she's our employer, but she's not a woman you should be seen associating with, Myka."

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask her father if it were any better for her reputation for her to be seen taking him home from jails and saloons, but she smothered the impulse and nodded in an acquiescence more sham than sincere.

As for the men who led Sweetwater, Myka and her father were introduced to them through Helena's intercession. She took them to the bank, where the Berings spent an excruciatingly long 20 minutes listening to the bank's president, Mr. Jeffries, discourse about the need to ensure that loans carry the proper collateral. Then the next day she arranged for them to attend the town council's meeting. Mr. Bering had protested Myka's attending the meeting with the bank president, and he vociferously objected to her going to meet the town council with him. When he had blustered that Myka's participation in the _Journal_ was limited to gathering news of weddings and births and other "women's affairs," Helena had countered, "But she's the face of the _Journal_ when you're not present, isn't she?" At Mr. Bering's unhappy nod, she had continued in a tone that would not be brooked, "Then she'll go with you."

The town council held their meetings in the offices of James MacPherson, a local rancher and Sweetwater's sole attorney. Mr. MacPherson's offices were on the floor above the doctor's office, which was, conveniently enough, just down the street from the Rusty Spur. A disruptive patron getting the bum's rush out the Spur's doors didn't have far to go to have a bloody nose or black eye tended to. The Berings followed Helena up the stairs and stood behind her uncertainly as she opened the door that displayed, in black lettering across the glass, James MacPherson, Attorney-at-Law. Mr. MacPherson's secretary, an owlish looking young man, with wire-rimmed spectacles sitting at a slant on the bridge of his nose and a distractingly large mole on his cheek, led them to a room down a short passageway. Compared to the reception area they had just been in, with its uncomfortable looking chairs and ancient carpet, this room was luxuriously furnished with chairs upholstered in plush fabric and dominated by a large table, on top of which were a box of cigars and a tray holding decanters ringed by glasses. Men had already gathered around the table, selecting cigars and nominating one among them to start pouring drinks. They looked displeased at the Berings' entrance until they caught sight of Helena, who was thanking the secretary for his assistance.

They tugged their waistcoats over their bellies and smoothed their whiskers, reminding Myka of a flock of preening birds. Helena spoke to each of them, asking after their families and working in her introduction of the Berings amid their rough gallantries. Their words were courtly, but their hands first hovered and then landed with a possessive splaying of fingers on her back while their glances kept dipping below the neck of Helena's dress. Mr. Bering they acknowledged with slight interest, and Myka merited only an appraising look or two, too dull a hen for their attention when paired with Helena Wells. Smoke from their cigars began to fill the room, and the councilmen's faces grew redder and their voices louder as, one after another, the decanters were emptied, but no one tried to start the meeting. Eventually the door to a private office opened, and the councilmen fell silent, taking chairs with the alacrity of students hoping to impress their headmaster.

The man who entered the room wasn't a handsome man nor a particularly young one, but in his pearl gray suit coat and trousers, which seemed to shimmer against the black broadcloth worn by the other men, he would cut a fine figure in the opinion of many, and he obviously thought so himself, accepting the greetings of the councilmen with the measured gravity of a royal thrust among the commoners. He surveyed Myka and her father with mild curiosity before approaching Helena and lifting her hand to his lips.

Myka had only ever read about such gestures, and it didn't look nearly as romantic in reality as it had in her imagination. It was too extravagant for this room and its audience, and Myka had the fleeting thought that the man was using the courtesy to mock Helena more than flatter her, and Helena must have had a similar feeling because the muscles along her jaw tightened as she withdrew her hand from his. "As always, Mrs. Wells, it is a delight to see you," he said. "What is it that I can do for you?"

"I've brought the new editor of the _Journal_ and his daughter to meet the town council. What better way for them to become acquainted with the concerns of Sweetwater than to meet the men to whose care the town is entrusted?" She said, smiling sweetly upon the councilmen in their chairs. Myka could almost hear a fluttering of wings as thumbs were tucked into waistcoats and chests swelled under the implicit compliment.

"MacPherson," one of the men chuckled. "I've said it before and I'll say it again, we ought to make Mrs. Wells an honorary member of the council. I'd much rather have her pretty face next to me than the ugly mug of Roberts here." With an excess of good humor, he slapped the shoulder of his neighbor.

Mr. MacPherson smiled thinly but didn't respond. He made no motion to cross the room to greet the Berings, and Myka realized before her father did that Mr. MacPherson expected them to come to him. She inclined her head slightly in Mr. MacPherson's direction and discreetly pulled at her father's sleeve. With a grimace he directed at the ceiling, Mr. Bering advanced with hand outstretched. Mr. MacPherson briefly clasped it and sketched a bow in Myka's direction before refocusing his attention on Helena. "They are more than welcome to stay for the meeting, as are you, Mrs. Wells." At that, a few of the councilmen pounded the table in support. Mr. MacPherson waited for the noise to die down before he continued. "But I'm afraid you'll find us rather boring. We spend much of our time going over the town's accounts." He directed another thin smile, clearly dismissive, at the Berings. "If what you really want to know are the issues we face as a community or our plans for the future, I'll be more than happy to meet with you privately to discuss them."

"If you don't mind, we'll stay for the meeting," Mr. Bering said blandly, locating an empty chair and settling snugly against its back. "I'm always interested in hearing the details."

The corner of Helena's mouth twitched upward, but if Mr. MacPherson was displeased with the Berings' decision to stay he gave no sign of it, dragging forward another chair for Myka and apologizing for the lack of suitable refreshments. Having successfully seen to the Berings, Helena took her leave, much to the disappointment of the councilmen, many of whom chorused that she would be seeing them later at the Spur. "Adding to my night's profit," she teased. She nodded coolly to Mr. MacPherson on her way out, and Myka found herself hoping that Helena might hesitate in the doorway and look back in her direction, but the decisive stride didn't falter.

The council did spend much of its meeting on the town's accounts, calling in the town's bookkeeper (who just so happened to be Mr. MacPherson's secretary). As he ran his finger down the columns of the ledger, droning about income from various taxes and fees and expenses related to various charges and wages, Mr. Bering's head rolled to the side of his chair and he snored, snorted himself awake, and then repeated the process. Since at least one councilman's head was drooping toward his chest, Myka hoped that the council wouldn't hold her father's inattention against him. Every once in a while she would look away from the bookkeeper and his mole, only to encounter the incipient smirk on Mr. MacPherson's face as he watched her father sleep. She wouldn't have been surprised if Mr. MacPherson was letting the bookkeeper run on to discourage them from attending future meetings. Surely no one, not even the most diligent and dedicated of the councilmen, could care whether last month's accounts were off by a penny.

Finally a councilman roused himself to thank the bookkeeper for his time and then turned to Mr. MacPherson. "James, we keep hearing rumors about a new branch line running through Halliday. What have you heard about it?"

The smirk faded, and Mr. MacPherson's eyes drew down at the corners as if he were trying not to see something unpleasant. Like the question just asked, Myka thought. Summoning a knowing smile and spreading it among the councilmen, letting them in on a secret they should already know, Mr. MacPherson chided, "They're just rumors. There's no more truth to them now than there was last year. As far as I know, a branch line will continue to run through Sweetwater."

Another councilman said through a cloud of cigar smoke, "Well, Charlie Graves was in Bismarck last week, and he told me there was a lot of talk of it. Taking the railroad away from Sweetwater would be the death of this town."

Mr. MacPherson shrugged and spread his palms wide to suggest his helplessness before the wild talk of men like Charlie Graves. "I repeat, gentlemen, there will be no new branch line through Halliday."

The councilmen cast uneasy looks, but first one and then more began to guffaw and remind each other that Charlie Graves could never be trusted to tell a story straight. They settled back in their chairs; one of the decanters was passed around, and for a few minutes the room was silent as the men puffed on their cigars and sipped their drinks and took comfort in the knowledge that their ship of state was still riding high on its prairie sea. Clearing his throat, Mr. MacPherson introduced the remaining items of the council's business, the approval of the previous meeting's minutes and a proposal to increase the vice tax levied on the Rusty Spur.

"That won't please Mrs. Wells," a councilman noted.

"Mrs. Wells's displeasure is not our concern," Mr. MacPherson said crisply. "Too much of Sheriff Lattimer's time and, thus, this town's money is spent breaking up fights at the Spur. She should bear her responsibility for the cost."

The councilmen once more exchanged uneasy glances, but there were no further objections, and the meeting ended with an increase to the vice tax of 3%. The men departed with a few gruff farewells to the Berings and a more enthusiastic purloining of cigars. Mr. MacPherson broke off a whispered conversation with his secretary to intercept the Berings. "You should feel free to attend any of the council's meetings in the future, although I can't promise they'll be any more interesting than this one." He picked at an invisible piece of fluff on the sleeve of his coat. "Of course, I would be happy to continue the arrangement the council had with your predecessor, Mr. Sanderson. After the minutes are finalized and approved, I'll send a man over with a copy to the _Journal_."

"I'll give some thought to that, but for the time being, I'll plan on attending the meetings," Mr. Bering said affably, but his point was plain.

Mr. MacPherson's answering smile didn't reach his eyes. "We'll look forward to seeing you." It looked none the warmer when he turned it toward Myka. She felt like rubbing her arms as she and her father went down the short hallway and re-entered the reception room, and she could have sworn that she felt a cold draft emanating from Mr. MacPherson's offices even once they were outside.

On their return to the _Journal_ , Myka asked, "What do you think of Mr. MacPherson?"

Mr. Bering stopped, blinking against the late afternoon sun. "I trust him about as far as I can throw him." He tugged a handkerchief from a trouser pocket and mopped the perspiration from his face.

"I'm not sure he was telling the truth about the railroad line," Myka said, recalling the irritation Mr. MacPherson couldn't completely hide when the subject was raised. "Or not the whole truth. He seemed dismissive of what the other council members were saying."

"Maybe," her father said. "But he doesn't strike me as a man with much patience or tolerance for opinions the opposite of his, either." He stuffed the handkerchief back into his pocket. "I think I'll try to collar some of the council men when they're alone, see if they have something different to say when he's not around."

"You could ask Mrs. Wells what she knows," Myka suggested. Even if Helena wasn't a member of the council, she owned the largest clearinghouse for gossip in the town, the Rusty Spur, and, from the way they joked with her before the meeting, it sounded like a number of the councilmen were regular customers.

Mr. Bering tilted his head in consideration before wagging it from side to side. "I imagine she thinks she knows quite a bit." He missed the wry smile of acknowledgment that crossed his daughter's face. "But she's not privy to the kind of information I'm looking for, the goings-on with the politicians and the other high mucky-mucks. No, I'll try the other councilmen over the next week or two." In an awkwardly affectionate gesture, he shook Myka's shoulder. "In the meantime, we need to get home so you can get supper on the table."

Myka wanted to believe that the father she remembered, not the tired, sweating man in front of her, anxious for nothing more than a meal and several stiff drinks, would have been open to approaching Helena, but though she had memories of him sharing his day with her mother, she couldn't recall him asking her mother's opinion. Nor could Myka remember Jeannie Bering volunteering one. Her mother had been a quiet woman, from her appearance, which, while attractive, blended into her surroundings, to her voice, which had been soft and trailing. But even if Myka's father had always held the traditional view of a woman's role, the old Warren Bering would have no sooner left the council meeting than he would have been tracking down the other members and hounding them with questions, not satisfied to leave Mr. MacPherson speaking for all. He certainly wouldn't have been standing on the walk, putting his hand to his back as if he were feeling for an ache and looking forward to one of Myka's meals.

Mr. Bering ate his supper and then a piece of apple pie, its filling so thick and pasty that Myka, ruefully evaluating her latest effort at baking, thought they might be able to use it to caulk the windows for winter. He sat in his chair afterward, filling his pipe but restlessly tapping his feet. After several looks at his pocket watch, he announced that he was going out, and Myka knew he would be heading toward the Rusty Spur. She cleaned their dishes and picked up her sewing, intending to mend a hem in one of her father's pairs of trousers, but she felt a sudden burst of restlessness herself, and without examining too closely what it was she was doing, she washed her face and hands and scowled at her hair in the mirror before closing the door behind her. It was twilight, with few people on the street and most of them on their way home. She had never visited Helena this late, but then this wasn't a social call, not exactly.

As Myka opened the gate, she was reassured by the light shining from the library's windows. Leena answered her knock with the same warm smile that she always greeted Myka with and led her to the library. "Mrs. Wells is on her way out, but I'm sure she won't mind your borrowing some books. I think you know her library almost as well as she does."

Myka looked at the bookshelves longingly but said, with a minute shake of her head, "If this isn't a good time, I can come back, but I need to speak with her."

Leena's smile faded, although she spoke even more gently. "Mrs. Wells likes to personally keep an eye on things at the saloon when all the cowhands come to town, but I'm sure she'll spare some time for you." She paused as Myka unconsciously began to toe the dusty tip of her shoe into the deep pile of the rug. "Would you like to sit down, Miss Bering? May I bring you anything?"

With another tiny shake of her head, Myka sat on the edge of a chair, her eyes fixed on the entrance to the library. She heard the soft clatter of Leena going upstairs and then, moments later, the quick, firm steps that heralded Helena's appearance. Seeing her in the shadow cast by the doorway, Myka wondered why Helena was dressed in mourning until she came farther into the room and what had looked black turned the darkest violet. The silk of her dress rippled in the glow of the lamps, suggesting in its sheen the color of water at night, and poised above it, like the moon risen on its arc, was the pale perfection of Helena's face. The sound of her own breathing rasping in her ears, Myka forgot why she was sitting in Helena's library, thinking only that she had never seen anything so beautiful.

"If you're here to tell me about the outcome of the meeting," Helena said with an exaggerated sigh, "I already know about the increase in my taxes, from three different councilmen, no less."

Dazedly, Myka said, "No, it's not that. It's about the railroad line to Halliday."

Helena looked sharply at Myka. "What was said about it?"

"Nothing, no, obviously that's not true," Myka said, flustered, distracted by how the dress fanned onto the floor and then swirled around Helena's legs in synchronous movement with her, as though Helena didn't so much wear it as it clung to her of its own volition. Myka tried to marshal her thoughts, but her mouth was dry and she couldn't take her eyes away from Helena. Her hair was sleekly swept up into a chignon and diamonds sparkled at her ears; if only the princesses in the knightly romances that Myka had devoured as a child had resembled her, she might have paid them more attention. "The council was concerned about rumors of a new railroad line, but Mr. MacPherson said the rumors weren't true." Inwardly Myka groaned at her words. Helena must think she was an idiot for rushing to her about a rumor that was no sooner mentioned than squelched. "But I didn't believe him," she said flatly.

"Why not?" Helena asked, her gaze intent and utterly devoid of the amusement Myka had expected.

"Because he didn't want to talk about it," Myka said slowly. "I think Mr. MacPherson is a man who likes to impress others with what he knows."

Helena snorted; it was a very ladylike snort but still a snort. "You've read him well. James MacPherson is a small cog who yearns to be a very big cog." Rounding Myka's chair, Helena went to her desk and took pencil and paper from a drawer. "Here, let me show you the nasty little mess that our Mr. MacPherson has created."

 


	4. Chapter 4

Myka leaned over Helena's shoulder as she sketched lines on the paper with a draftman's precision. Standing so close, Myka could smell Helena's perfume, a dark scent sharp with spice, like cloves or nutmeg, like Helena herself. She could see the tendrils of hair that had escaped the coil at Helena's neck and she held her hands behind her back so she wouldn't be tempted to touch them.

". . . and here," Helena was saying, "is Halliday."

Myka blinked, dragging her eyes from Helena's neck to the piece of paper Helena was filling with bold, strong lines. Like her signature, Myka almost dreamily recalled. In her mind, she traced the confident slant of the "H" and the flourish of the "W"—

"I'm sorry," she said. "What did you ask me?"

"Why your father isn't here with you. This would be of interest to him, too."

Myka debated which was the least damaging admission, that her father was drinking at the Spur or that he didn't believe Helena would be able to tell him anything of value. "He plans to talk to some of the other council members to find out what they know," she said, hoping that she had successfully sidestepped the question.

"He'll find the other members useless. They're MacPherson's toadies," Helena said waspishly. Then her eyes narrowed suspiciously at Myka. "He doesn't think I know anything." With a disgruntled harrumph that made Myka smile, Helena refocused on her map. "There are three ranches between Sweetwater and Halliday," she said, rapidly drawing boundary lines. "Walter Sykes' Lazy S, MacPherson's Circle M, and," she pointed with her pencil to an oblong shape that cut across the paper at an angle, "Claudia Donovan's Double D." She drew lines representing railroad tracks at the top of the page and the bottom of the page. "A main railroad line runs north of Sweetwater and Halliday, and another runs south. The branch line through Sweetwater connects them. If you wanted to move the line to Halliday –"

"You'd have to go through the Donovans' land," Myka finished for her. Frowning, she leaned closer to Helena, pointing first at Sweetwater and then at Halliday on the map. Helena's perfume was stronger, headier this close, making Myka dizzy. Without thinking, she placed her other hand on Helena's shoulder to balance herself; she could feel the bone of Helena's shoulder, small and fragile under her fingers. Helena showed no discomfort with the familiarity, and Myka fought the impulse to leave her hand where it was. Instead she moved away, putting both hands on the desk, and craned in from the corner. "I don't understand the advantage of moving the branch line to Halliday. It's closer to the main line to the north, but Sweetwater is closer to the one to the south."

"People think railroads were built to transport freight. They were built to make a few men very, very rich," Helena said dryly. "The only reason for moving the line to Halliday is to make someone money. Oftentimes investors in the railroad also own the land, and if they own the land the railroad needs to run through, they can make the railroad pay a high price."

"Like MacPherson," Myka said, Helena's sketch of the area around Sweetwater acquiring more import the longer she studied it.

"Like MacPherson," Helena grimly agreed. "He and his cronies own the land to the north of the Donovan ranch, but he needs the land here," she circled part of the Donovan ranch, "to complete the deal."

"So that's why he doesn't want to discuss the line to Halliday and why he's telling the council it's all just rumors. He wants to buy the land as cheaply as possible from the Donovans," Myka said thoughtfully. "Do the Donovans know about the branch line? Do they want to sell?"

"He's been trying to get Claudia or, rather, her guardian to sell him the ranch ever since I've been here." An affectionate smile crossed her face. "But Claudia has no interest in money, which separates her from the vast majority of us."

"You know her well?"

"She's one of my favorite people in Sweetwater," Helena replied, relaxing deeper into the chair, her body angled so that if she extended her foot, it would slide against Myka's.

Noticing how close Helena's expensively shod foot was to her own shoe, Myka swallowed the nervous bubble in her throat and said with a teasing confidence she didn't at all feel, "So why doesn't a 'powerful business interest in her own right' have a parcel of land she's waiting to sell to the railroad?"

Helena laughed in recognition of her own words to Myka on the day they had met. "I do own land around here, but it's not worth much. A poor investment, most would say. It's cut up with ravines and gullies, horrible for grazing, and almost a day's ride from Sweetwater, but that's precisely why I like it. I keep a few horses out there –." She abruptly cut herself off. "But we were talking about MacPherson and his plans for Halliday."

Myka added 'Helena's ranch' to the fast-growing list of subjects that Helena didn't care to discuss, almost all having to do with who she was and why she was in Sweetwater. The spirit of adventure Helena had also referred to the first day they met could have taken her anywhere. Why here? And how did she know so much about the activities of one James MacPherson? But she was quiet as the dark head came to rest against the side of the chair, and Helena abstractedly stared at the desk. "My . . . friends. . . have told me that MacPherson's backers are getting nervous. They expected the deal to be completed long ago, and there are other uses for their money."

"But if Miss Donovan won't sell, the deal is dead."

"Then he'll have to persuade her to sell, won't he?" Helena suddenly pushed herself from her chair, coming to stand at the window behind the desk. She lifted the curtain, looking out into the night. Myka sensed her unease and, beyond that, an apprehension she wouldn't have normally associated with Helena. "There's only so much he can do within the bounds of the law," Myka reminded her.

Helena let the curtain fall back into place. "Despite the fact that he's an attorney, I don't believe he has much respect for the law. He's ambitious above all else, and while failure would cost him money, it's the humiliation he wouldn't be able to bear."

Myka found herself rubbing her arms, just as she had upon leaving Mr. MacPherson's office. "How far do you think he'll go?"

"I don't know," Helena said. "Eighteen months ago, Claudia's brother was murdered." Myka's head shot up, her eyes wide. Helena held up a hand to forestall her alarm. "It looked like he was trying to stop some cattle rustlers. Rustling's endemic here, and there have been past shootings. . . ."

"But," Myka prompted her.

"But his death has left the ranch in the hands of a 19 year old girl. An unusual 19 year old girl, mind you. But until she turns 25, the ranch is in trust, and she's dependent on the integrity of the trustee. It's always seemed convenient timing to me, Joshua's death and the ranch going into trust and all the while MacPherson is sniffing around the land." Helena smiled a crooked smile. "He may not be well liked but he's respected, and the town would say it's all in my imagination. Maybe I have given myself over to fancies, but I like to think I have a better understanding of men like MacPherson than the wise citizens of Sweetwater." She gave a sarcastic emphasis to the last words. Returning to her desk, she slipped the map into a drawer. "I'm late for the Spur. Would you care to walk with me?" Although her eyes remained shadowed with concern, her tone was light. "As far as propriety would allow?"

"I think we can make propriety bend a little," Myka answered with a grin.

"But not as far as we should be able to," Helena murmured. She patted the neck of her dress, her brows drawing together as she couldn't find what she was searching for. She went out into the foyer, calling for Leena. "Are you upstairs? Could you –." She stepped back into the library. "I need to go upstairs for a minute, and then we can leave."

"Why the Spur?" Myka asked, not knowing why she was asking the question now. As her curiosity about Helena grew, she was becoming less cautious about what she asked her. She could blame it on having been around newspapers all her life, trying to anticipate what their readers wanted to know, but she knew her motivation had nothing to do with newspapers. Soon, she thought, she would wouldn’t hesitate to ask Helena the most personal of questions, and their conversations would become one relentless interrogation, Myka hoping to discover why Helena fascinated her so, and Helena only fueling her fascination by refusing to answer.

"You tend to ask the most surprising questions at the most surprising times, Miss Bering," Helena finally observed. After pursing her lips in consideration for a moment, she said, "I'm still trying to decide whether I find it refreshing."

Muttering in self-excoriation as she paced the library floor, Myka nearly ran into Leena as the other woman passed in front of her to turn down the lamp on the desk. "I heard you ask her about the Spur. She'll tell you she bought it because it was a good investment. Don't let her get away with that." Leena's smile was impish but there was an underlying seriousness in her expression that compelled Myka to promise, "I won't."

"Won't what?" Helena asked, sweeping back into the room, exchanging looks with Leena as Leena extinguished the lamp on a side table.

"Let you get away with anything," Leena said with mock severity.

"There's nothing I do that escapes your eagle eye," Helena complained, "or your shrewish tongue."

Leena only laughed, their chiding of each other a habit each clearly loved to indulge. Myka wasn't sure how she would characterize their relationship, but she was fairly certain that mistress of the house and housekeeper was the least part of it. She noted Leena's glance flicking to a locket that was now nestled at the base of Helena's throat, and a sadness settled over Leena's face when she recognized it. The locket was a simple piece of jewelry, the kind of sentimental memento that a young girl might wear, and it seemed all the more plain against the richness of Helena's dress and the gleam of her diamond earrings.

But Leena made no comment and, with a rustling of her skirts, she left them. The quiet that then descended accompanied Helena and Myka on their walk to the Spur. Even from Helena's home, the glow from the Spur was visible and the sound of someone enthusiastically but inexpertly playing the saloon's piano carried on the night air. They crossed the main street to a narrower one that would take them to the back of the Spur, and although Myka had the longer legs, she was almost skipping to keep up with Helena. The setting of the sun had brought no relief from the heat, and Myka wasn't looking forward to another night spent tossing and turning in her airless alcove. She wondered if the bedrooms in Helena's house were cool, and for the space of a few seconds, she imagined Helena's bedroom, all in white, with a large bed that didn't dip in the middle like her own and sheets that felt soft, but not thin, to the touch.

"I bought the Spur because it was a good investment," Helena said abruptly, stopping and turning to look at Myka.

Helena's voice comingling with the image of her bedroom that Myka had just pictured was as evocative as if Myka were seeing Helena undress for bed in front of her, an intimacy so powerful despite its being invented whole cloth that Myka looked away, as embarrassed as if she had been caught peeping into Helena's window. "Leena told me you would say that," she said faintly. Trying to regain her composure, Myka said more firmly, "She also told me not to let you get away with it. So, tell me, why the Spur?"

Myka felt more than saw Helena impatiently chop at the air. "A tiresome trait, believing people are better than they are. Leena would like you to think I bought the Spur because I didn't like that the girls were being maltreated." Even though Helena's face was only a greyish glimmer against the darkness, Myka sensed the dark eyes staring intently at her. "It's odd how men don't like to pay for a girl who has bruises and cuts, and even stranger that girls who have been beaten aren't enthusiastic about entertaining clients. I believed the Spur would make more money if the girls didn't fear for their safety."

Myka knew what went on in the rooms of the Spur and places like it, but she had assumed that, like most cash transactions, if it wasn't always pleasant, it was at least quickly and painlessly done. "You mean," she began haltingly.

"There are men who like some slap and tickle or a spanking, and I expect my girls to accommodate them," Helena said coolly. "But others become violent when they want more than they're willing to pay for, and still others who find their pleasure in inflicting pain. Those are the ones I don't tolerate." Her words laced with an angry sarcasm, she said, "No doubt you're thinking I should teach my girls the skills that would obtain them respectable employment. But where are all the grand families in Sweetwater for whom they can cook and clean? Is Mr. Burns at the general store supposed to hire them as clerks? There's nothing wrong with offering services where they are needed, Miss Bering. Sweetwater doesn't need maids or seamstresses, but it obviously needs whores."

Helena hadn't raised her voice, but the words reverberated against the silent buildings around them. Myka recognized one as Sweetwater's bank, another as the saddle and harness-maker's shop, managed by respectable men, who regularly attended Sweetwater's church and, chances were, as regularly climbed the stairs to the Spur's second floor. Just as her father would, Myka thought, if he hadn't already found his comfort in a bottle. Weariness dulling the sarcasm, Helena said, "While Jesus went among the lepers, the good Christian women of Sweetwater lift their skirts and cross the street to avoid contact with one of my girls." This close to the saloon, the piano's discordant music was louder but merrier, a woman's teasing "Keep your hands where I can see them, Bert!" rising above the notes. "I'm sorry," Helena said quietly. "You asked a question, and in response I gave you a tirade."

Myka was used to hearing much stronger invective and more personally aimed, but she wasn't going to tell Helena that. Instead she said dryly, "Clearly, emotion played no role in your investment in the Rusty Spur."

She feared Helena had taken offense at the remark until a rueful chuckle reassured her. "Touché, Miss Bering." They walked in silence until they reached the back entrance to the Spur. Silhouetted in the doorway, Helena hesitated. "Tomorrow I'm planning to visit Claudia Donovan. Would you like to come with me?" She hastily added, "And your father as well, of course. It might help to put this business of a branch line to Halliday in perspective."

"Yes," Myka said, a touch too readily. Trying for a more measured response, she explained, "If Miss Donovan is all that stands between MacPherson and his making a fortune, my father and I ought to meet her." Spending the day in Helena's company was justified if it furthered the work of the _Journal_ , Myka rationalized, although exactly how it benefited the newspaper was eluding her at the moment.

"Good. We'll leave bright and early in the morning. It's a long ride out there."

Myka waited for her father to come home from the Spur. As of late, he wasn't so intoxicated that she couldn't maintain some sort of conversation with him. She thought he would be agreeable to going out to the Donovan ranch; he was interested in meeting Sweetwater's residents, even if the town limits had to be generously expanded to include the more far-flung families. She also knew that he harbored a romantic fascination with life on the range, having admitted more than once that, as a boy, he had dreamed of being a scout and explorer, like Kit Carson or Jim Bridger. Granted, herding cows was a step down from blazing trails through the wilderness and living with Indians, but Myka suspected her father would be hard-pressed to disguise an eagerness to tag along after the Donovan hands. He would also be more receptive, she hoped, to listening to what Helena would have to say about the railroad line to Halliday.

She finished repairing the hem of his pants and read far into Mrs. Gaskell's _North and South_ but had yet to hear the sound of her father's footsteps. She could gauge by how slow and dragging they were how much he had had to drink. It was when she heard the knock at the door to the _Journal_ , polite but insistent, that she knew her father would be in no condition to make the trip to the Donovan ranch the next morning. She opened the door, expecting to see some burly stranger from the Spur holding her father upright, but instead it was Pete.

Greeting her as if he were simply stopping by for a visit, he asked Myka where he should lay her father down. She motioned to the bedroom and watched as Pete rolled her father gently onto the bed and then eased his boots off. "He'll be all right after he sleeps it off," Pete said, his expression both sad and knowing. "He said something to me about it being your mother's birthday."

Her father hadn't been too drunk not to offer an excuse. When Myka was much younger and her father’s drinking not yet a chronic event, he would stagger home, explaining away his inebriation on the fact that it was the anniversary of Jeannie Bering's death or their wedding day or some other occasion that was sure to tug at Myka's heartstrings. The excuses had stopped as the drinking continued, but he still trotted them out, especially if he was being escorted home – or to the jail – by the sheriff. "My mother's birthday is in March, Sheriff Lattimer," Myka said.

"Oh," Pete said, his face becoming even sadder as he looked down at Myka’s father, who had turned on his side, cradling a pillow. "Don't give up, Miss Bering. Sweetwater may turn him around, it did me." At her inquiring gaze, he said, "It's a long story. For now, it's enough to know that I was at the end of my rope when I heard the town was looking for a new lawman. I came here, and I stopped drinking. You can't lose hope." A delighted grin split his face. "Hey, 'at the end of my rope,' 'can't lose hope,' I'm a poet. Well, not much of one," he amended. "But I've got a good feeling about you, Miss Bering. A really good feeling. You're going to find something wonderful here, trust me."

Myka leaned against the door after Pete left, trying to hold onto the optimism that had shone, however briefly, while he was in the room. He would want her to concentrate on all the positive things about her father since they had moved to Sweetwater, his renewed enthusiasm for his work, his improved mood, and not the step backward he had taken tonight. It was unfamiliar, hope, but, Myka reflected, she had been experiencing many unfamiliar emotions since she and her father had come to Sweetwater, many of them associated with their new employer. Unconsciously she straightened her shoulders as she pushed herself away from the door, prepared to take on her own fluttering heart.

…..

Myka had wrestled through the night with whether she ought to go with Helena to the Donovan ranch or stay home and look after her father. She had rarely had a choice before and being presented with an alternative to quietly completing her chores while her father slept and then literally tiptoeing around him when he was awake made her realize how much his drinking was a constraint upon her. As they had moved from town to town, the rented rooms successively smaller and drearier, it seemed that the circuit she walked around him had grown smaller as well until she could almost believe that her shoes were tapping a circle on the bald dome of his head. He couldn't inhale a breath that she didn't exhale.

He wouldn't want to eat, and he would complain that the smell of cooking made him nauseous. He would hang his head in his hands and yell at the least sound she made. Following one of his heavy bouts of drinking, there was nothing that looking after him did except make them both the more miserable. There was every reason to go with Helena and none to stay, except to silence the self-accusations that would begin as soon as she and Helena left, that she wasn't a good daughter, that her place was with her father. Today, she decided, she would risk the reproaches, real or imagined. She had gotten up before sunrise, setting out something for her father in the event he would want to eat. She had cleaned the rooms as best she could in the half-light and draped his mended pants over a chair. Now she was squatting in front of the printing press, trying to identify what gear or lever, what thingamabob, was wearing out, breaking down, because the press was grinding too hard as it churned out the paper.

She didn't hear Helena's knock at the door, and she didn't know until she stood up and stepped back and felt Helena's hands on her elbows, steadying the both of them, that Helena had entered the _Journal_ 's office. "Mrs. Wells," Myka gasped, "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were here." Helena removed her hands and Myka stepped away, flustered, uncertain whether to attribute it to Helena's early arrival or to their momentary collision. There had been nothing intimate in the brief contact of their bodies, but she had registered both Helena's softness against her back and that, in grabbing her arms, Helena had held her for a heartbeat or two longer than necessary.

But if Helena recognized that she had held onto Myka for longer than polite assistance required, she gave no sign of it, her attention fixed on the press. "I'm the one who should apologize," she said as she knelt, peering into the recesses of the machine. "I didn't exactly announce my presence." She leaned back and looked up at Myka. "Are you having problems with Bessie?"

"Bessie?" Myka echoed.

"That's what Mr. Sanderson called it. I acquired them both when I bought the _Journal_." She flashed Myka a mischievous grin. "I did sense a certain spousal devotion to her on his part. He didn't like anyone else to touch her."

"Maybe she's missing him," Myka suggested, "because it's been harder and harder to get the paper through. My father needs to take a look at her."

"I can do that," Helena said promptly, rolling up the sleeves of her dress.

"Mrs. Wells, you don't have to, I mean, my father is more than able," Myka's voice trailed off as Helena turned back to the press and reached deep within it. "You'll ruin your dress," she protested weakly, glancing at the bedroom door. After a hard night of drinking, her father usually slept until noon, but sometimes the slightest sound would raise him from his stupor and he would lunge into the kitchen or parlor, raging at whatever or whoever was nearest. If that happened this morning, Myka could only hope that her father would still be wearing his pants.

"No matter," Helena said cheerfully over an eruption of clanking from the press. "I picked one of my oldest dresses today because visiting Claudia requires a tolerance for chaos. The last time I was there. . . let’s just say that it now does duty as a cleaning rag.”

One of her oldest dresses. It was plainer than the other dresses Myka had seen her wear, but it was still nicer than anything Myka owned. Claudia Donovan, chaos, dresses ending up in shreds. She wasn’t sure she could afford the visit, given the limitations of her wardrobe and the Bering family budget, but, she had to admit, she was all the more intrigued. She knelt next to Helena, watching her deftly move various parts of the printing press. "Like any woman worth having," Helena said, grunting with effort as she tugged at a piece of metal, "Bessie needs a little wooing before she surrenders. . . her heart, that is." Helena clarified, after a quick look at Myka. The piece came free and Helena examined it before shrugging and replacing it. "That's not the problem," she muttered.

Forty-five minutes later, much of Bessie was on the floor next to them, and though they were no nearer to identifying the problem than when Helena had arrived, she was humming to herself, ink on her hands and smudges on her face. Myka had made coffee, which Helena reluctantly accepted, there being no tea available in the Bering household, and Myka’s father had slept through the clanging as Helena stripped the press, crooning to the machine as she worked. Myka had acted as her assistant, placing the parts on the floor as Helena had given them to her and venturing out to the carriage at Helena's command and bringing back tools from a box, stored with a basket with a cloth covering, behind the seat. The high polish on the leather gleamed in the sunlight, and the two horses in harness, sleek and well fed, eyed her with no alarm as she climbed in and out, apparently used to their mistress's vagaries. ("One shouldn't visit Claudia without a full set of machinist's tools" was all that Helena had said in explanation as Myka handed her a wrench.)

On her back, looking up through the press, Helena said silkily, "Come, love, we're both women trying to make the best of things under difficult circumstances. Tell me what's wrong, and I promise to make it better." Bessie remained uncooperative as Helena loosened a bolt. It fell free, striking Helena on her cheek before dropping to the floor.

"Bol –" she started to hiss, then stopped, rubbing her cheek and glaring at the press.

"Perhaps," Myka observed, "she needs Mr. Sanderson's touch."

Helena gave her an arch look. "I have a very sure hand."

Not entirely certain she knew what Helena was alluding to, Myka thought she could make a pretty good guess, although it was Helena who blushed first. Clearing her throat, Helena said, "Sometimes I forget I'm not in a saloon. My apologies if I've given offense."

"None taken," Myka said breezily, enjoying that it was Helena this time who was embarrassed. As Helena attacked the press with fervor, Myka asked, above the sounds of squeaking wood, "Where did you learn to do this?"

Sitting up, Helena paused, looking at the tools and parts surrounding them. "You mean dismantling machinery to no effect?" she demanded in self-disgust.

"Mmmm. . . I would call it conducting a thorough investigation of the problem," Myka countered.

Helena smiled. "Your confidence in me will be rewarded." She took a long, weary look at Bessie. "Eventually." She idly revolved a small part between her fingers. "To answer your question, my grandfather would sometimes take me with him when he toured his factories.

"Factories?"

"Textiles." Helena said, putting the part down and scooting closer to the press once more. "My father and brother like to pretend we're not from trade, but my grandfather wasn't ashamed. He loved nothing more than to take apart a machine and put it back together," she fondly recalled. "He and I would spend hours together working out improvements. He even had some of mine implemented." There was an echo of a child's pride in the words.

"He must have loved you very much," Myka said cautiously, expecting Helena to change the subject at any moment.

"He did, and I adored him." Helena rose to her feet and walked around the press. "I was twelve when he died. His name was Christian, and Christina was named after him." She walked the other way around and stopped. She sharply drew in a breath and gave the press a shove. Myka stared at her in disbelief, but after a few seconds, something seemed to clatter into place. Helena grinned, giving Bessie a pat. "Ah, a lass who wanted a bit of rough wooing."

Myka collected the tools as Helena restored Bessie to working order, betraying no indecision as she fit parts together. Assessing the state of her hands with dismay once the last piece of Bessie was put where it belonged, Helena murmured her thanks as Myka brought her a basin of water and a towel. After a vigorous scrub, most of the stains and streaks were gone, with Myka helpfully pointing out the areas on Helena's face that needed a pass with the towel. Helena shrugged at the few stubborn stains that remained on her hands, but Myka held up a finger and went to search the desk, wincing as empty whiskey bottles rolled into each other as she pulled drawers open. Finding a small jar, she took it over to Helena.

"My father swears by this, and it does seem to get the worst of it out."

Helena scooped out a teaspoon-sized amount of what had the look and feel of ointment but lacked its astringent smell. She worked it into her hands and nodded with satisfaction as it removed the ink. "Do you know its composition?"

Myka shook her head. "You'll have to ask my father." Reflexively she looked toward his bedroom, grateful that he had slept through the minor demolition that had occurred only a few feet away. "He says it's an old printer's secret." As if acting from a similarly ingrained habit, she took Helena's hands and inspected them. "The nail beds are always the hardest." She scooped out more of the compound and worked it into the base of Helena's nails, frowning in concentration.

Even stained and nicked from some of Bessie's sharper pieces, Helena's hands commanded Myka's admiration. Her fingers were long and slender, her skin unmarred by the faint discolorations of old scars and other imperfections that dotted Myka's own. Myka could feel the bones and tendons move as she turned Helena's hands, their warm pliancy making her think she was holding not hands but birds, small and quiescent, their instinct to flee stilled for the moment. The back and forth of her thumbs, a casual motion at first, had slowed, becoming more suggestion than actual touch.

"I'm not the only one with sure hands," Helena said, barely above a whisper. "Gentle, too."

Not yet ready to look up, to meet those eyes, Myka intended her smile to be her only response, but she heard herself say teasingly, "You're not a lass who appreciates a bit of rough wooing?" It was more seductive than playful, and Myka was shocked by the sound of her voice, low and with a timbre that seemed to vibrate within her, as though inside her a bell had been struck. She had never sounded like that before, not even with Sam.

"I wouldn't say that," Helena said, and if Myka's voice was a bell sounding a call, then Helena's was the smoke and the fire. Her eyes, always before so opaque, thoughts and feelings hidden behind the amused glances, had the transparency of storefront glass, and Myka saw deep within them a longing that matched her own. "Myka," Helena said with raw urgency, transforming the name into a plea that burned a path from Myka's ears to her chest.

The bedroom door opened, and Myka’s father tottered in the doorway, squinting against the sunlight. "Myka," he growled.

And there, between Helena's saying of her name and her father's, lay all the difference in the world. She felt Helena slipping her hands from hers, and Myka took a placating step toward her father. He was wearing pants, but his undershirt, yellowed from use and age, was unbuttoned and drooped off one shoulder. Having caught sight of Helena, his scowl deepened though he managed to grind out a somewhat civil "Mrs. Wells."

"Dad," Myka began. "Mrs Wells –"

"I'm taking Miss Bering out to the Donovan ranch today," Helena interrupted. "She expressed an interest in meeting Claudia Donovan, and since Miss Donovan owns one of the largest ranches in this part of the territory and is a stout supporter of the _Journal_ as well, I thought I should introduce them." Nervousness made her rush her words, but her tone was businesslike, and she showed no surprise at seeing Warren Bering in wrinkled pants and undershirt. "You're more than welcome to accompany us, but we need to leave soon as I've already put us behind schedule."

Mr. Bering started to shake his head but thought better of it, grimacing with pain. "I don't think I'll be going with you today." Standing taller and trying to shrug his undershirt back into place, he said, "I'd appreciate your asking me the next time you want to take my daughter somewhere, Mrs. Wells. I know I'm your employee, but let me be frank, I don't want Myka seen too much in your company. I'm sure you understand why."

"Perfectly," Helena said neutrally, although she seemed to have grown even paler.

"Dad," Myka said, embarrassed and angry. "I'm a grown woman, capable of—"

He extended his arm, as if to shake his finger at her, but the gesture unbalanced him and he grabbed at the doorframe for support. "As long as you live under my roof –"

"We shouldn't upset your father," Helena interjected, gracing him with a conciliatory smile. "Mr. Bering, I understand your concern, and the next time I have the occasion to invite your daughter somewhere I will seek your permission first."

Mr. Bering grunted in acknowledgment, Helena's words having mollified him, and stumbled backward into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Avoiding what she assumed was Helena's pitying gaze, Myka walked rapidly toward the _Journal_ 's door, flinging it open, and blindly trying to pull herself up and into the carriage. Her foot slipped and she nearly fell into the carriage, saving herself at the last minute by holding onto the edge of the seat. "Myka," Helena said, squeezing Myka's arm. There was no pity in her expression, only concern. "Myka," she repeated.

How did she ever think her father's drinking could remain a secret? Especially from Helena, who owned the damn Spur. He had swayed in the doorway, reeking of alcohol, presuming to lecture Helena about the preciousness of his daughter's reputation. Maybe he had spoken out of some crabbed sense of paternal responsibility, but Myka had heard only the old outrage. Sam had blown into and out of her life so long ago that Myka could almost believe he was a remnant of a bad dream that she mistook for a memory. But she knew that if she put her mind to it, she would be able to remember every one of his lazy smiles, the hours spent together "stargazing" as he had called it. While her father's memories of Sam wouldn't be as numerous or, thankfully, as detailed, they were probably no less painful in their own way. She had been the cause that time, not her father's drinking or his editorials, of their hasty departure from another small town. She could try to explain to Helena that her father had been railing at an old ghost, but she wasn't brave enough to put her and her father in an even worse light, and she suspected that Helena would have little interest in hearing a "girl wronged" story that was no different from a thousand others. Myka stood by the side of the carriage, silent, letting Helena think what she would.

"Myka," Helena said again, patiently. How could a name that sounded so. . . flinty. . .when other people said it, the "ka" hitting Myka's ears like a hammer striking rock, sound so elegant and even pretty when Helena said it? "He's right, you know. I should take more care with your reputation."

Looking around, down, anywhere but at those eyes, Myka said, "Mrs. Wells, please believe me when I say you can't hurt my reputation any more than my father and I already have. There are things you don't know. . . ."

"Helena,” Helena corrected. “Remember your words about bending propriety?” As Myka summoned a wan smile, Helena said gently, "I'm sure there are many things about you that I don’t know, and if you ever wish to tell me them, I shall listen." She helped Myka up to the seat. The horses nickered at the creaking of the carriage and stamped their hooves, their harness jingling. "But what I need to know right now is how your father behaves toward you when he's been drinking. Is he violent? Because if he is, I will remove you from this place today." Helena spoke casually, as if she was talking about moving the Spur's supply of liquor from one storeroom to another, but her face was set, the muscles bunching at her jaw, as she came around the horses to the other side of the carriage.

"No," Myka said. Sweetwater was beginning to stir. Buckboards carrying families into town were rolling down the street, and the shrill voices of children at play broke the morning silence. "Not toward me. Toward himself, yes. He drinks because he thinks the world has punished him, and then he punishes himself by drinking more."

Sitting down next to Myka, Helena lifted the reins and urged the horses forward. "We all have our ways of punishing ourselves. If we're lucky, we're not also punishing those around us." Gazing out over the horses' bobbing heads, she said, "I fear your father is not a lucky man."

Twenty-eight years old and unmarried – some might say that Myka was her father's punishment. And if that were true, then both Berings were unlucky. But what was luck, in the end? The confidence – Myka sidled a glance toward Helena – or the hope – she thought of Pete – that things would work out the way they should matched with a determination to help them along. Myka knew that she didn't lack for determination; she just needed something, or someone, to pin her newfound hope on.

 


	5. Chapter 5

They rode east from Sweetwater, the horses trotting at an easy pace. Although the top of the carriage helped to shelter them from the sun, Helena had put on a hat with a wide brim that shadowed her face. Myka, having forgotten to bring a bonnet with her, sat at an angle, looking away from the sun, and watched the prairie roll away from them toward the horizon, the grass bending in the breeze. Birds skimmed over the grass, searching for food, and behind straggling lines of barbed wire, cattle grazed. Myka was grateful that Helena made no attempts at conversation; the charged moments between them when she had been stroking Helena's hands followed by the mortifying appearance of her father had her in turmoil. Myka liked to picture her mind as an endless series of compartments or file drawers in which were stored all her thoughts and experiences. Once labeled and filed, they were hers to reexamine or relive at will, their ability to defy order or logic or, more rarely, decency nullified. That wasn't to say that there weren't some events too painful to be catalogued – her mother's death, her relationship with Sam – but they were few, and there was even a special compartment for them labeled "Things Not to Think About." Maybe she needed a new file drawer simply labeled "Helena" since none of the existing compartments in her mind were sufficient to contain all of her conflicting, confused emotions about the woman.

She twisted her head, appraising Helena, who sat forward on the seat, occasionally twitching the reins to guide the horses. Helena's profile, what Myka could see of it under the hat, confirmed her earliest impressions. Helena's lips had a natural upward curve, as if that amused smile was only just held in abeyance, and the tilt to her chin suggested a confidence bordering on cockiness. Even though she knew she couldn't withstand another one of Helena's searing looks, Myka wanted to touch her, to cover the hands holding the reins with her own, to tip back Helena's hat and trace the contours of her face, if only to reassure herself that the intensity – she couldn't, didn't want to find the right word to describe what she had felt, knew instinctively that Helena had felt as a result of that incidental caress (it had to have been incidental) in the _Journal_ 's office – wouldn't be repeated. She hadn't slept well, slept at all, really, worrying about leaving her father alone, and then there had been the strangely companionable time spent fixing Bessie and listening to Helen whisper in Bessie's ear, if Bessie had ears, as they worked, all of that had infused those moments she had held Helena's hands with an expectancy that she would have never otherwise felt. Unique. Anomalous. All the same, there would be no returning to the relationship they had before; they were "Myka" and "Helena" to each other now, though Myka had yet to call Helena by her name. She could feel each of its three syllables glide over her tongue, and despite hearing the name only in her mind, she felt the same resonance, the same tolling deep within that she had felt when she teased Helena about being wooed, as if her body was calling out to itself.

"Tell me," she said rapidly, "tell me about Claudia Donovan." Anything. The size of her shoes. The color of her hair. It was proving very difficult to keep Helena shut in her Helena compartment. "You said she was unusual. How is she unusual?"

Helena stiffened, as if Myka's request had interrupted her own train of thought. "She's very bright. Inventive." She pointed off to their left. "That's the Sykes' ranch. You'll see what I mean soon enough."

Myka squinted against the sun, spying a cluster of buildings on the top of a small ridge. Some were clearly outbuildings, while another had the lovingly tended air of a home. As the carriage drew closer, she could see wooden ramps extending in various directions from the house and the glint of what looked to be rails snaking toward the outbuildings.

"Walter's legs were crushed in a riding accident several years ago. Claudia built the ramps and the tracks and a special chair to run on them so he can have some independence. The chair itself is a marvel, powered by a small engine. Quite ingenious, really." Helena issued a soft command to the horses and tugged on the reins. The carriage slowed as they passed by the buildings. "Sometimes you can see him out and about in the chair. Had we more time, I'd take you up to the house to meet him."

"He doesn't share Mr. MacPherson's interest in the line to Halliday or the Donovan ranch?" Myka saw that, in back of the house, a flower garden had been planted. Despite the drought that had enveloped this part of the Territory, the garden didn't suffer from a lack of water, the blooms, even from a distance, lush and vibrant. There was no reason to think, simply from the riot of color, that Mr. Sykes had other, less rapacious interests, but Helena was already nodding her head in confirmation.

"Horticulture and bees are his passions. In addition to the garden, he converted a room in his home to a tiny greenhouse.” Helena pointed to a corner of the house that was more glass than wood and shone brightly in the sun. “Claudia helped him with that as well, installing the heating system. I’ve been inside it, it’s blooming even in the winter. Absolutely lovely.” She sighed in what have been envy. Then, with a casualness that seemed a little too careful, she admitted, “I’ve not seen the apiary."

"You're afraid of bees?" Myka said, unable not to smile at the thought of the self-possessed Helena wildly swinging her arms at a tiny honeybee.

"I'm not afraid of bees," Helena said defensively. "I have a healthy respect for any insect or animal that can cause pain in complete disproportion to its size."

"Then you would 'respect' a pekinese or terrier as well?"

"Nasty biting beasts," Helena muttered, urging the horses back into a trot.

As the sun climbed higher, the heat became more oppressive, and Myka struggled against sliding into an uneasy doze. Occasionally she sensed Helena turning her head to check on her, and she would right herself against the back of the seat and stare fixedly at the landscape in front of her, which was only more prairie. She thought she heard Helena say indulgently, "Go to sleep, Myka, I'll wake you once we're there." She couldn't name what woke her next, except that, for a brief period of time, though there wasn't a cloud in the sky to obscure it, the sun shone less brightly. Or perhaps it was no more than the tension suddenly rippling from Helena. She was sitting alertly, her mouth compressed in a troubled line. Groggily, her head beginning to throb with an incipient headache, Myka shaded her eyes with her hand and looked for what had caught Helena's attention. The prairie looked the same, silvered with dust. To the north, at the end of a winding lane, was a home much larger than Walter Sykes', sporting a central entrance with a portico and rows of windows on either side. It was the type of home, mansion actually, that Myka associated with the gentry in the novels she read, where the landed classes were attended to by an army of servants and everyone rode to hounds. All the signs of the toil that supported such a residence, the ranch's barns, corrals, and bunkhouses, were at a far remove.

"This must be the MacPherson ranch," Myka said.

"Functionally, yes, though I'm sure he would prefer a description more befitting its pharaonic splendor," Helena said sardonically.

"What do they call it around here?"

"His folly, his madness, what else? But even those who whisper about it behind his back are impressed by it." Helena took a last look at the mansion over her shoulder, and Myka followed suit, unable to shake the impression that the glinting of the windows in the sunlight was, in fact, a cascade of mocking winks at their backs.

The prairie continued to roll beneath their wheels, the horses pulling the carriage over every bump and prairie dog mound, or so it felt to Myka as she and Helena were jolted and jounced. She searched for anything that would break the seamless meeting of grass and sky, each barely distinguishable from the other as the sun neared its zenith, transforming the blue of the one and the drought-brown of the other into a glaring, blinding white. Even Helena, who had been impervious to the heat, began to wilt, freeing one hand to unbutton the neck of her dress. As the fabric curled away from her skin, Myka saw the thin gold links of a necklace and wondered if it was the locket that Helena had worn last night. 'Close to her heart' was the phrase that immediately came to mind, and Myka was struck again by the sentimentality, which seemed so unlike the Helena she knew. She recalled Leena's sadness when she recognized the locket, and Myka wondered about the locket's story, the lost love who had meant so much to Helena that she carried a part of him with her. For the first time, Myka felt a surge of annoyance at her own unflagging curiosity; she wasn't sure she wanted to know about the person who had so irrevocably captured Helena's heart.

"How close are we to the Donovan ranch?" Myka asked with an irritability that had nothing to do with the heat or the length of time they had been traveling and everything to do with the direction of her thoughts. But Helena wouldn't know that, and Myka knew she sounded exactly like a fussy child.

"We've been on Donovan land for quite awhile now," Helena said mildly. "We'll start seeing evidence of Claudia at work very soon."

Myka didn't have long to puzzle over what Helena meant by that. Boxes of varying sizes, covered with different substances and materials, began to appear here and there on the prairie. Farther on there was a large circular patch of scorched earth and, in the middle of it, a chute tilted at a 45 degree angle. "A launching pad," Helena explained, unprompted. "But it's not been safe to fire any rockets because of the drought."

"Rockets?" Myka repeated in disbelief.

"Perhaps missiles is a better word. Missiles aspiring to be rockets. She hopes to fly to the moon someday."

"Miss Donovan wants to fly a rocket to the moon?" Myka said with the same note of disbelief.

"Among other things," Helena said, smiling with an almost parental pride. "She's convinced that we should be able to harness energy from the sun, thus the 'energy cells' that you see around us."

"And has she been successful?"

"Not yet. That's why there are so many of them."

Myka squinted against the glare of a metal hull baking in the sun. Listing to the side, it resembled the photographs Myka had seen of a whale beached on the sand. A tiny cabin, more like a turret, protruded from the hull, as if the hull, in imitation of the whale it resembled, had spawned another structure, and from it extended a length of pipe with a bulbous lens at its end. "Is that a submarine?" She asked, her voice dropping.

"Sank during her maiden voyage on Jackrabbit Creek," Helena said with mock solemnity. "All hands, that is, Claudia and I, escaped without incident."

The horses, as though aware they were approaching their destination, increased their pace, and Myka clung to the seat as the carriage bounced between slabs of rock set in the ground ("an ongoing experiment on the weathering rates of different minerals"), more energy cells, and a few windmills (''Claudia is also interested in wind power"). The rutted track they were following widened and smoothed, and soon they were passing under a metal arch with the "Double D" etched in curving script at the top and approaching a sprawling house with a verandah, an enticingly shaded verandah Myka noted, with a glider and rocking chairs and a red-haired girl who leaped from the top step and ran to greet them.

"Finally!' She declared, rising up and down on the balls of her feet. She was wearing overalls over a checked shirt, although the overalls seemed to be made out of a stiffer fabric than denim and they shone in the sun as though they had been oiled. Her auburn hair was cut short, only just brushing the collar of her shirt. She helped Myka down or, more accurately, in an excess of enthusiasm, pulled her from the seat. "You must be Myka. Helena said she was going to bring you out here." Myka couldn't take offense at an appraisal so naked and so guileless, but she also couldn't help feeling like a Donovan steer singled out for market. "I'm Claudia. No 'Miss Bering' or 'Miss Donovan.' I don't stand on ceremony here. Artie would say I don't stand on manners or good taste either, but that's just him." Her smile was friendly, but her eyes were wary, noticeably warming only when Helena joined them. Claudia wrapped her in a one-armed hug, motioning toward Myka with her other hand. "You've brought me a new victim." She theatrically coughed. "Ahem, a new assistant. Jinksy will be so relieved."

"Claudia," a man said sternly from the verandah. His face was scrunched in irritation, although Myka couldn't tell whether it was directed at Claudia or expressive of a general irritation at having guests since the glances he sent her and Helena from beneath bushy brows were hardly welcoming.

"Keep your chaps on, buckaroo. I'll wait until after lunch to drag them to my laboratory," Claudia said, affecting a wince-worthy British accent as she pronounced 'laboratory.' She squeezed Helena closer to her. "Please tell me you brought some of Leena's cookies with you. Artie's been cranky all morning."

"He seems so much more pleasant now," Helena said under her breath, eliciting a yelp of laughter from Claudia. "Cookies are in the carriage." She unwound herself from Claudia and returned to the carriage to lift a basket from behind the seat.

Artie had left the verandah and was nearing Myka when Claudia emitted a piercing whistle between her thumb and forefinger. He stopped, clapping his hands to his ears. "Will you stop that?" he demanded. As if the noise had disarranged his appearance, he reset his spectacles and smoothed his goatee before introducing himself to Myka. "Arthur Nielsen, Claudia's guardian."

"Jailer," Claudia countered as a Donovan hand appeared at her side, as if her whistle had magically summoned him. He nimbly climbed onto the carriage's seat and, at his twitching of the reins, the horses eagerly trotted toward a large barn behind the house.

"Someone has to keep you from destroying this ranch by fire, flood, or whatever godawful invention you dream of next," Artie shot back, but he said it without rancor, and Myka suspected that the misanthropic thrust of his eyebrows and the jaundiced looks cast at her and Helena were automatic and without real significance, a carapace that protected something more vulnerable within.

"We expected you some time ago," he grumbled at Myka as he led her to the verandah. "Hours of 'Where is she?' and 'Helena should have been here by now.' A frustrated Claudia is a dangerous Claudia. She almost blew up the kitchen while she was waiting for you."

Or maybe all that was under Artie's carapace was more disagreeableness. Myka bit back a sigh and almost missed the challenge in his eyes. Artie might be a grump and a complainer, but he was also testing her. A shrinking violet wouldn't fare well in the brusque give and take of the Donovan household. "Mrs. Wells brought her toolbox. We came prepared," she said dryly.

Something approaching a smile touched Artie's lips, although he sounded no less curmudgeonly when he said, "You better hope she threw some armor into the carriage, too."

Inside the house it was pleasantly and, inexplicably, cool. Myka looked up at the ceiling and then at the walls, trying to determine the source. The room was dark, curtains drawn across the windows, but that wouldn't in and of itself explain the sharp drop in temperature. Claudia, still Helena's shadow, craned her head around the latter's shoulders and, seeing Myka's puzzled expression, said, "Something I've been toying with, how to cool a house during the summer. I've piped in water –"

"Claudia," Artie groaned, "can you please explain all this later? Marta's been holding lunch. . . ."

"All right, all right," Claudia said, exasperated. "No talk of cooling systems or propulsion systems or anything that might interfere with your appetite." With false innocence, she added, "I suppose you also don't want me to talk about how you almost lost your hand this morning touching something on the stove I told you not to touch."

Artie pushed up his spectacles and pinched his nose. "You had a container on the stove that shouldn't have been there. I thought it prudent." His voice grew louder. "I thought it prudent to remove it seeing as how last month you left something on the stove that exploded and took out two windows."

"But this time it was supposed to be there," Claudia protested, pleading her case before Helena, whose eyes were crinkling with amusement. "I've been working on a self-heating mechanism for Jinksy and the men to use when they're out on the range in the winter. Trying things out to see if they work is called experimentation, Artie," she said with scornful emphasis. "I needed a heat source, and the kitchen was convenient."

"I told you about treating the house as an extension of your workshop," Artie said warningly.

"And I told you not to touch it," Claudia said, leaving Helena's side and squaring off in front of her guardian. "The self-heater needed to be carefully handled, that's why I told you I would take it off the stove." Seeing them face to face, Myka noticed that Artie wasn't much taller than Claudia, though considerably more rotund.

"And fifteen minutes later, when you hadn't gotten around to it, I took matters into my own hands," Artie growled.

"And just about had them blown off at the wrists," Claudia snapped.

In part because she wanted to defuse the tension between them and in part because she was genuinely curious, Myka asked, "What happened?"

"Because Artie was on the verge of letting the self-heater drop to the floor, Marta used some kitchen towels –" Claudia started.

"To take it from me and throw it out the back door," Artie interrupted.

"Where it exploded and killed a couple of chickens," Claudia finished. "By the way, we're having fried chicken for lunch."

They continued to glare at each other until Artie threw his hands up in frustration and shouted "Enough!" Swiveling his head toward Helena, he said, "I blame you for this."

"Me?" Helena exclaimed. "I'm not the one who conducted an experiment without taking the proper precautions." She leveled her own glare at Claudia before turning it on Artie. "And I'm also not the one who ignored instructions not to touch something."

"But you encourage her in all this," Artie sputtered.

"Scientific inquiry should always be encouraged," Helena said loftily.

"Let me hear you say that when she burns the house down around our ears," Artie muttered.

As the three stood united in their grievances with one another, Myka tried to hide a smile. "Marta's waving us into the dining room," she said as casually as she could, hoping no one would notice that Marta (whoever she was) was nowhere to be seen and hoping as well that the dining room was straight ahead because that was the direction she was taking. Artie, Claudia, and Helena followed without comment, and after passing through a short hallway, more of an archway, actually, from the entrance of which the mounted head of a buck seemed to glassily eye them, they entered the dining room.

A long, trestle table covered with a simple oilcloth took up the center of the room, and a buxom woman, graying blond hair in braids wrapped around her head, was moving around it, setting down platters of chicken. Behind her, from the kitchen, trooped in several of the ranch's hands, who crowded together in confusion upon seeing Myka and Helena. The last of the hands, a man with pleasant-looking features and close-cropped blond hair, took charge, nodding to one to pull out a chair for Helena while he slid out a chair for Myka. "Steve Jinks," he said, carefully pushing a seated Myka closer to the table.

"Myka Bering," she said as he took the chair next to her.

With their sweat-stained shirts and deeply tanned faces, the men looked alike, but Helena readily put a name to each of them, greeting them in turn. Most of them stared down at the table as she spoke to them, mumbling back a "Good afternoon" or a "Mrs. Wells" in acknowledgment while a few were in an agony of blushes.

"If only I had that effect on men," Claudia said with an insincere sigh from the foot of the table.

"Be just as glad that you don't," Artie said, scowling at Helena, who sat across from him. "The fact that every man within 50 miles of Sweetwater knows her name is not something to be emulated."

"You told me I should find a role model, and I found one who likes science and math and doesn't mind the occasional destructive experiment. It's not as though she's giving me lessons on how to be a prostitute," Claudia said, reaching for a platter of chicken.

Silverware dropped on plates, and Artie choked on his water. The men who had been uncontrollably blushing a few minutes before turned crimson, and even Steve Jinks put his napkin to his mouth to muffle his laughter. Only Claudia and Helena seemed unaffected, Claudia deliberating between a wing and a drumstick and Helena calmly unfolding her napkin and putting it over her lap. "Don't despair, Mr. Nielsen," she said with a wicked grin. "I am inimitable."

As Artie rolled his eyes, Steve whispered to Myka from behind his napkin. "Before you even ask, yes, they're always like this."

Marta (what else could such a robustly Nordic-looking woman be named, Myka thought) returned from the kitchen, arms laden with bowls of fried potatoes and apples. As she placed them on the table with the eager assistance of the men, she called out something in a language Myka didn't recognize but which sounded like German, the declarative punch of the syllables imprinting themselves on the air as if straight from the _Journal_ 's press. A few minutes later another woman entered the dining room from the kitchen. At first, Myka didn't take notice of her, her attention caught by the empty chair at the head of the table where a full place setting lay unused and unremarked. But the sudden dart of Helena's head plus the silence that had fallen over the table again made Myka look up. The woman was as blond as Marta but thirty years younger, and if Myka sometimes pictured Helena as a princess from a Scott or Dumas romance, all breeding and elegance, this woman was a princess from a fairy tale. Not ethereal like they frequently were, her presence was too physical, from her height to her breasts and hips, which pulled at the seams of a dress that had originally not been her own but made over from another's. But she had their loveliness, a perfection of feature and complexion that, in the fairy tales, always marked her for punishment by a queen tormented by envy.

Sucking a shred of meat from a bone, Claudia gestured offhandedly at her. "This is Liesl, Marta's niece. Fresh from the old country."

Liesl smiled, showing, of course, perfectly even, white teeth. She carried slices of bread on plates that she set at Artie's elbow and then, rounding the table, at Myka's. Helena's eyes had never left Liesl's face, and she seemed to be struggling with a kind of baffled recognition. She started to ask Liesl a question in English but switched to German, and though Myka didn’t understand the words, she recognized the hesitancy in Helena’s voice, as if Helena wasn’t sure that she hadn’t already met Liesl in some other place, at some other time. 

Liesl's smile grew broader, but her aunt answered for her in a rapid-fire stream of German, shooing her niece back to the kitchen. "I believe," Artie said smugly, "that Marta said Liesl grew up in a very traditional, very devout family in Bavaria, and that she is happy working on the ranch. Meaning, my dear Mrs. Wells, that Liesl is not looking for additional employment."

"I understood that as well, Mr. Nielsen, but thank you," Helena said sardonically, picking up her fork and turning over a slice of fried potato. Her expression remained troubled as she stared at the piece of potato, and Myka discovered that her own appetite had left her. She also found that she was beginning to watch the entrance to the kitchen to see if Liesl would return. Spearing her chicken thigh with more vigor than necessary, Myka reminded herself that it was none of her business if Helena was taking an interest in the blindingly beautiful new hire on the Donovan ranch. Turning to Steve, she began to ask him questions about the ranch. Facts, such as how many head of cattle the ranch supported and how many men were employed, were useful, unlike the questions running around in Myka's mind about why Helena was disturbed by Liesl's presence and how it was that Helena appeared to think she knew her. Steve was obligingly responsive, and as he answered each of her questions, Myka began to relax. He asked her questions about the paper in turn, but although Myka sensed that his interest in her was genuine she knew, without being able to articulate why, that it was of a different order than Pete's or, for that matter, Helena's.

The squeak of a chair being pushed back disrupted the flow of conversation around the table, and Claudia stood up, patting her stomach, which sounded more like claps against the stiff material of her overalls. "Wonderful lunch, but it's time to get to the workshop. Helena, are you ready?"

Helena looked down the table at Myka and then at Claudia. "I think Myka will be joining us, Claudia."

"Oh, that's fine," Claudia said, cocking her head to one side and appearing to measure Myka with a glance. "I'm not sure what protective gear we have that will fit her, but we can cobble something together."

Myka mouthed 'protective gear' at Helena, but Helena had assumed her best sphinxlike expression.

"Why don't I take Miss Bering out in the trap and show her the ranch?" Steve interjected. "We've been talking about it over lunch, but seeing it would make for a stronger impression."

"That would be lovely," Myka said, trying to hide her relief. While she wanted to see Claudia's workshop, she wanted to do so at a time when the wearing of protective gear wasn't necessary.

"Of course, if that's what you would prefer," Helena conceded. Her eyes had narrowed, but nothing else in her expression suggested she was amused. After a long look at Steve, she flashed a bright smile at Myka. "I hope you have an enjoyable ride."

As Steve helped Myka from her chair, he said close to her ear, "She didn't mean a word of what she just said, you know."

Myka waited on the back porch of the house, while Steve went to the barn to harness horses to the trap. Helena and Claudia were walking through the long grass to a structure far away from both the house and the outbuildings. She had watched as Helena put on a large apron that covered her from her shoulders to her feet, and it had the same heaviness and sheen as Claudia's overalls. Its stiffness impeded her movement, but she still managed to look graceful, especially when she glided close to where Liesl was storing leftovers from the meal. Once again Helena had said a few words to her in German, and this time, with Marta busy in the dining room, Liesl gratefully responded. When Marta entered the kitchen carrying dirty plates, Helena just as gracefully glided away, and only then did Myka release the fold of her skirt she had unconsciously clenched in her hand.

Steve drove the trap close to the house and jumped down from the seat to help Myka up. He held out a Stetson with a slightly crushed crown to her. "There's no cover for the trap. Sorry I couldn't come up with anything better to protect you from the sun."

Myka put it on her head, an incipient swagger to her step, and she felt more than a little ridiculous at playing the cowboy. Steve directed the trap past the barn, the corrals, the bunkhouse, and Claudia's workshop. In the distance, cows switched their tails and dipped their heads in and out of the grass, and on the lip of a swale, where the barbed wire fence was bent almost to the ground, the posts drunkenly tilted, two hands were making repairs. They shouted to Steve, who acknowledged them with a wave. Myka had expected him to visibly relax once he was outside the house, much as the other hands, on their way back to their chores, had joked and laughed amongst themselves, the constraint that had kept them silent and almost locked into their chairs lifted by the absence of their employers. But Steve acted no differently than he had in the dining room, apparently as at ease in the Donovan home as out on the range.

"How long have you known Claudia?" Myka asked.

"Since she was this high," Steve said, holding his hand a couple of feet in the air above the trap's floor. "I became friends with Joshua in boarding school. We roomed together in college, and he talked me into coming out here and helping him to run the place after their father died. It's like she's my little sister too."

"The empty chair at the table, the place setting. That's for Joshua?"

Steve nodded, looking between the horses' ears. The horses plodded through the grass, and the trap, Myka decided as it creaked over the uneven terrain, was even less comfortable than Helena's carriage. "We were all devastated, but Claudia wouldn't let go. Still hasn't, not completely. For someone who believes that everything has a scientific explanation, she's convinced that Joshua's spirit is hovering around the ranch. That's why there's the empty chair at the table, and why his bedroom has never been touched, and why his boots are by the door. She thinks he won't be able to rest until his killer is caught."

Myka scanned the prairie, pretending to take an interest in the flight of birds disturbed by the trap's complaining approach. Though he talked about Claudia's loss in a voice as calm as it was when he described the workings of the ranch over lunch, it was clear he also mourned Joshua Donovan. He was looking away from her, his head pulled to the side, and there was a tremor in his hands that caused the reins to twitch against his skin. "I understand that he died in a confrontation with rustlers."

"That's what they say," he said flatly.

"But you don't believe it," she prompted gently.

"Joshua wasn't a fool. He wouldn't have taken on rustlers by himself." The twitching of the reins increased and Steve's voice hoarsened. "Where some of the boys found his body, there was no evidence there had been rustlers. The fence had been cut, but there was no sign of a fire, that any cattle had been rebranded. It wasn't even a place where we let them graze. The ground's too rocky to grow grass and the pitch is too steep for the cows. And even if he had met up with rustlers, he would have never turned his back on them. He trusted whoever shot him, at least enough that he felt he could walk away without getting a bullet in his back."

Myka wanted to press him further, but the grief and anger chasing each other across his face dissuaded her. However, after a rough swipe at his eyes, Steve continued. "Claudia thinks it's one of the small ranchers or farmers around here. A number of them have been grumbling for years about how the Donovans stole their land from them. But that's all it's been, grumbling. None of them would have killed Joshua over it. Besides, none of them would have stooped so low as to take his ring."

"His ring?" Myka repeated.

"His father left him his ring, black onyx set in a silver band. He always wore it, but when his body was found, the ring was missing. Claudia and I searched the ranch for weeks, and we couldn't find it." Steve laughed, though it held no humor. "It didn't have any value, except sentimental value. The killer couldn't have gotten much for it, whoever he was. Sheriff Lattimer was out here for days, and after he couldn't pick up the trail, Claudia hired Pinkertons. They couldn't find anything either. She has a $5,000 reward for anyone who can lead us to his killer."

Steve lapsed into silence, and Myka swallowed her questions. She could encourage her father to publish a piece in the _Journal_ reminding readers that the murder remained unsolved. Perhaps an article on cattle rustling, one that would implicitly point up the differences between how rustlers were known to operate and what seemed a poorly staged scene for a murder. It would be interesting to see how James MacPherson responded to the renewed interest in Joshua Donovan's death. Not aware that she was voicing her thoughts aloud, she mused, "I'd like to see where he was killed."

Steve, who had been staring once more between the horses' ears, looked at her in surprise. "It's in a remote area of the ranch. It would take us the rest of the afternoon to get there."

Myka flushed. "I'm so sorry. That must have sounded awful. I was just thinking of ways the _Journal_ could help you and Claudia find answers." She gingerly touched his sleeve. "Please forgive me."

Steve covered her fingers with his hand. "Actually it's a relief to talk about it with someone who didn't know Joshua. All Claudia, Artie, and I manage to do is upset each other." He gave Myka's hand a friendly squeeze before releasing it. "Since his death, it's almost as if Claudia has been on a mission to kill herself. She's gone mad with the experiments. Artie thinks Mrs. Wells has been egging her on, but she's been steering Claudia away from some of her more dangerous ideas and drumming it into her head that, no matter what she takes on, she needs to be safe about it."

Myka smiled to herself, imagining Helena in her scientist's apron counseling caution, her dark eyes magnified by a futuristic set of safety lenses. The intensity with which they could focus – Myka shivered at the fantasy of imploding under such a directed glare. A black sun. . . incandescent. . . .Myka shivered again, wondering if it was from fear or excitement.

"Are you cold?" Steve asked, eyes widening in astonishment.

Myka's flush returned. "Not at all," she said softly.

Steve turned the trap to the west, saying he would show her Jackrabbit Creek. Myka recalled that it was the site of the submarine's sinking and was both reassured and a little disappointed, she would have had to admit if asked, to see that "creek" was not a misnomer for "river." While it was wide and, according to Steve, deeper than many creeks, unless Helena and Claudia had launched the submarine during spring flooding, they had been in no imminent danger of drowning. Taking off their shoes and socks, stockings in Myka's case, she and Steve walked the narrow strip of sand bordering the creek, digging out arrowheads and skipping stones across the water's surface. Afterward he drove the trap farther north until they stopped in front of a rise whose face had weathered away under the wind and rains of a million years or more. Steve pointed out the fossils of ancient fish in the rock and noted that Claudia had found the fossilized bones of some small mammals. She had set aside a space in her workshop to begin constructing skeletons; what she couldn't find she would create with the assistance of drawings from experts on the subject.

The shadow of Joshua's death had disappeared, at least for the time being, and Myka admired how much at ease Steve was with himself, how restful it must feel not to be besieged by endless worries and questions. Unlike her own mind, the series of compartments into which the worries and questions would need to be firmly, sometimes violently, shut, Myka pictured Steve's mind as a body of water whose tranquility was rarely disturbed, and even then the disturbance would be quickly absorbed, leaving nothing more than a ripple attesting to its passing. Nothing would appear foreign or alarming to a mind like that, and the most unfamiliar emotions would be accepted without judgement.

"You must be kidding," he said in disbelief when Myka haltingly tried to explain her appreciation of the balance he seemed to have achieved. "When Joshua invited me out here to work with him, I didn't know the first thing about ranching. I was sleepless for weeks and lived in constant fear that I was going to decimate his herd. But there's nothing like being out on the prairie for days on end following a bunch of cows." He grinned. "Weeks of boredom broken by a few moments of terror when, say, a thunderstorm sets off a stampede. You learn what to take seriously and what to let go of. There's always more to let go of than you think."

Late in the afternoon they returned to the house. Myka resolved to try what Steve practiced, to let go of those things that, despite how they might unnerve or frustrate her, were unimportant. Helena's interest in the new serving girl, Liesl, was a perfect example of something she should let float out of her mind. Whom Helena pursued, for whatever reason, had nothing to do with the _Journal_ , and that was the basis for her relationship with Helena, the paper.

The resolution lasted until she and Steve, laughing together over a tale he had told her about his first days as foreman, entered the parlor at Claudia's welcoming halloo. Helena was sitting on a sofa, chatting with Liesl, in German of course, as she poured Helena a cup of tea. Myka felt the smile die on her lips as Liesl handed Helena the teacup, blushing prettily at Helena's no doubt complimentary remarks. Though witnessing such a cozy scene was unnerving, Myka firmly told herself that it didn't matter, it couldn't affect the _Journal_ , but she felt the image of the two of them, their heads so close together, begin to lodge itself in her mind, and, instead of calmly shooing it away, she crammed it into the file drawer labeled Things Not to Think About.

Helena tilted her head, sending them an inquiring and not entirely friendly glance. After a sip of her tea, she said, "We were beginning to wonder if we should send out a search party, but by all appearances you were in no need of rescue." Her tone remained light, but Steve eyed her warily as he perched on the edge of a rocking chair and plucked one of Leena's cookies from a plate that Liesl offered him.

Feeling as though an apology was expected of her, Myka surveyed her wrinkled stockings and her shoes, still encrusted with sand from the creek. Her forearms were sunburned and her nose too, if the warm tightness of her skin was any indication. But she had nothing to apologize for, Helena hadn't asked that she be back by a certain time, and Claudia didn't seem to care, burrowed into the depths of an old wing-back chair and leafing through the pages of a catalog. Claudia put the catalog aside. "The longer you two were gone, the more distracted Helena became. She was on the verge of mixing one chemical with another and blowing up the workshop, not to mention blowing us up as well."

"If you had better labels for the bottles," Helena said tartly, "it never would have happened."

"I told her not to worry, Jinksy, that Myka was safe with you." Claudia yawned and stretched, extending her legs and swinging them on top of an ottoman. "Toss me one of the cookies, will you?"

With a flick of his wrist, Steve sent a cookie spinning through the air and Claudia neatly grabbed it. Belatedly realizing that she was still standing, Myka sat down on the opposite end of the sofa from Helena. Liesl was immediately at Myka's side, offering her a glass of lemonade. Myka's eyes met two of the clearest blue, their whites impeccably white. Liesl gestured toward the cookies, but Myka shook her head. Did the woman have no flaw? Myka knew her own eyes were red-rimmed from the dust and blinking at the sun. Who wouldn't prefer to look into Liesl's as Helena was doing now, Liesl, having wasted no time turning to Helena, poised to refill her cup. Helena murmured a soft refusal, and Liesl, with a look at Helena that Myka could characterize only as regretful, left the room.

"Well, tell us, what were the two of you up to?" Claudia said around a mouthful of cookie.

"Not much," Steve said. "I took her to Jackrabbit Creek and then we went looking for fossils."

"Did you bring me back anything?" Claudia eagerly asked.

"Nope, but the next time Miss Bering comes out, we'll all go fossil hunting." Steve tried to include Helena in his broad grin, but Helena was staring into her teacup.

"I had no idea the two of you went on an expedition. It would have been nice to have been forewarned since we won't make Sweetwater before nightfall," Helena said irritably.

Myka said, "I didn't know that we were on a schedule." Again, she had sensed that she was expected to apologize, but she continued to feel that one wasn't owed. If Helena wanted to fret about returning late to Sweetwater, she could fret. It wasn't as though Myka's father would be waiting up for her; the odds were he would have to be hauled home from the Rusty Spur.

"Ooooh, frost," Claudia wriggled in her chair in an approximation of a shiver.

Both Myka and Helena glared at her, and Steve signaled to Claudia to button her lip. But Claudia ignored the warning, cheekily teasing Helena. "It's not like you to be such an old maid about this." She lifted her shoulders and spread out her arms. "We have plenty of room if you want to stay over. So, they lost track of time, so –"

"Claudia!" Helena exclaimed, rubbing the back of her neck. "Desist, please." She stood up, placing her cup carefully on the table in front of the sofa. "Mr. Jinks, if you wouldn't mind bringing my carriage around, I'd be most grateful."

Steve jumped to his feet, shooting another cautioning look at Claudia. He smiled ruefully at Myka, which did not go unseen by Helena, whose lips thinned into a nearly bloodless line. "Unless, of course, you'd like to take Claudia up on her offer and spend the evening here," she said to Myka. "I wouldn't want to cut short your time with Mr. Jinks. I can send out the carriage for you tomorrow."

"No, I'm quite ready to return," Myka said icily, sweeping past Helena and heading, she hoped, toward the verandah. Behind her she could hear Claudia say, "What's gotten into you? Did you inhale something in the workshop?" Then a beat later, a yell of "Artie, come out and say goodbye."

Myka stood at the top of the steps and edged to the side as Helena came out onto the verandah with Claudia. Artie joined them, adding figures on a piece of paper he flattened against the railing and distractedly offering his farewells. Driving the carriage around the side of the house, Steve pulled on the reins to halt the horses and jumped down from the seat. Claudia followed Helena and Myka to the carriage, fiercely hugging Helena and then, to Myka's surprise, hugging her almost as hard. "It's either kill you or learn to share Helena with you," she whispered into Myka's ear.

Before Myka could fully take in what Claudia had said, she noticed that Liesl had slipped onto the verandah and was waving goodbye. Helena called out to her in German and Liesl responded, glancing Myka's way. Myka swallowed and took the rare, extra precaution of locking the Things Not to Think About file drawer and settled herself in the carriage. Helena set the horses at a faster pace as the shadows began to lengthen across the prairie, and for a long while the only sounds were the squeaks of the carriage and the dulled clops of the horses' hooves. Finally Helena unbent enough to say, "Despite what I may have said earlier, I sincerely hope that you enjoyed seeing the ranch with Mr. Jinks."

"Whether I enjoyed spending the afternoon with Mr. Jinks is completely independent of your hopes or good wishes or, for that matter, the absence of them," Myka said as starchily as she could.

In response to the rebuff, Helena slapped the reins and the horses increased their speed. Soon they were flying past the MacPherson ranch. The house still looked oversized for its surroundings but less ominous, the windows merely reflecting their passing in the waning light. Myka no longer had the impression that the house was maliciously winking behind their backs. In search of a peace offering, she thought of mentioning her ideas for reigniting interest in Joshua Donovan's death. As she explained her belief that a renewed emphasis on finding his killer might also have the added benefit of drawing out James MacPherson, Helena began to frown.

"I won't have you filling the _Journal_ with supposition," she said curtly.

"There won't be any supposition. Just the facts as they're currently known," Myka said, dismayed at Helena's negative reaction. "Which aren't many."

"That's why I particularly want to guard against innuendo." Helena bent forward on the seat, calling to the horses to go faster.

"Stop the carriage." Helena looked at her in disbelief, and Myka was taken aback by her own temerity. "Stop the carriage, please. I want to talk about this, and I can't think when we're bouncing about."

Helena steadily pulled on the reins, slowing the horses down. She turned on the seat to face Myka as the horses, taking advantage of the respite, began to nuzzle at the grass. "There will be no supposition, no innuendo. That's not how we. . . my father runs a paper, and I thought that's why you hired him, because he prints the facts. I don't know who killed Joshua Donovan, no one does, and that's the problem. A 19-year-old girl back there still sets out a plate for her brother every night. If people read a story reminding them that Joshua's murder remains unsolved, someone might recall some little detail that leads to capturing his killer. That's the only real benefit I'm looking for."

Helena didn't seem mollified by the explanation, her chin lifting stubbornly, her jaw set. "You don't poke at James MacPherson with a stick, you stab him with a sword. We don't have a sword."

"If he was involved with Joshua's death, perhaps he'll develop a guilty conscience or somebody will choose to speak up now when he didn't before. And if Mr. MacPherson didn't have a hand in it, maybe he'll be moved to help find the killer." Myka earnestly persisted.

Helena rolled her shoulders, as if she was carrying on an argument with some part of herself as well. "I don't think putting him on the alert is a good idea. If my suspicions are correct, he's a dangerous man."

"This isn't about MacPherson, it's about Joshua," Myka cried. Her hands had knotted together in her lap, and she stared at the grass rippling in the wind. Birds were chirruping as they searched out their nesting places for the evening, and Myka distantly appreciated the peacefulness of the setting, a marked contrast to the discord between her and Helena. "We would never publish anything that would endanger Claudia's safety," she said quietly.

"It's not Claudia's safety I'm worried about," Helena said, not meeting Myka's eyes. "I'll take what you said under advisement."

Myka took a deep breath. "I'm not asking for your permission." She wasn't sure how Helena would respond; she wasn't even sure that Helena had heard her. Helena didn't move, didn't look at her, didn't seem to be sharing the same space with her. The birds' chirping, so pleasant-sounding a few minutes ago, had become grating, and the prairie, bathed in an amber light when the carriage had stopped, was growing dim and indistinct. Under the darkening sky, the waving grass had an eerie, spectral quality to it that prickled the hairs at the back of Myka's neck.

Helena picked up the reins and clucked at the horses; the carriage's wheels protestingly turned. "Then I believe our discussion is at an end."

Night had fallen by the time they arrived in Sweetwater, the sun only a few streaks of pink and orange on the horizon. Myka had thought nothing could equal the misery of living through her father's sullen silences after a drinking bout. Not speaking yet sitting so close to Helena that she could feel the brush of Helena's dress as she adjusted her hold on the reins rivaled it. As the carriage rolled toward the _Journal_ 's office, Myka spoke if only to hear a voice for the first time since they had driven past the MacPherson ranch. "Thank you for introducing me to Claudia." It was feeble but not anything that could start another argument

"It was my pleasure," Helena said.

She hadn't said it sarcastically or angrily or in the colorless way people frequently said things when they would have been sarcastic or angry except for civility's sake. So Myka couldn't help herself, she pressed. "Was it really?"

Helena laughed, the relief in it unmistakable, and Myka felt her own tension begin to dissipate. "Despite the moments when I was decidedly not pleased, overall I very much enjoyed taking you out to the ranch." She stopped the carriage at the back of the building, at the door to the Berings' living quarters.

No light shone through the windows, and though her father might have gone to bed early, Myka was sure he was already at the Rusty Spur. She needed to climb down from the seat, say her goodbyes, and let Helena go home. But she didn't move, and Helena gave no indication that she was eager to have her leave. "Who is Liesl to you?"

It wasn't important to know this now, to know this at all. Steve Jinks wouldn't have asked such a question. In fact, were he in Myka's place, he probably would have already forgotten Liesl. Or, if he hadn't forgotten her, he would have been able to dismiss her, deciding that her effect upon Helena wasn't worth worrying about. But Myka could never be like Steve, not when it came to Helena. She couldn't even keep true to her fantasy of filing Helena away in compartments marked "Helena" and "Things Not to Think About." Helena would always elude her control; the version in her mind, scarcely less corporeal than the real Helena, was just as distracting, teasing, overwhelming.

"Nothing, other than she reminds me of someone I used to know." Helena paused. With a crisp decisiveness that signaled the subject was closed, she said, "Liesl is looking for someone to help her with her English, especially reading and writing. As you may imagine, she's already concluded that Mr. Nielsen and Claudia wouldn't be the most patient of teachers, and Mr. Jinks is too busy. I suggested you."

"Me?"

"You would be compensated, of course—"

Myka replayed the snatches of conversation she had heard between the two women in her mind. Although she understood German no better now than she had a few hours ago, it was vastly easier to picture Liesl's dimpled smile motivated by Helena's listing of candidates to tutor her than by compliments on how pretty she was or how blue her eyes were. "I'd be happy to help Liesl," she responded, astonished that she could say "happy" and "Liesl" in the same breath.

"Good. I told her to speak with you the next time she's in town."

The horses were stamping and tossing their heads, ready, if no one else in the carriage was, for the day to end. Myka gathered up her skirts and reluctantly descended from the seat. "Helena," she said and let the name hang in the air between them, knowing Helena would recognize that this was the first time she had called her by her name. "I had a very good time with Mr. Jinks today, but he's not you."

Helena grew still, and much as it had earlier in the day when Myka had held Helena's hand, the stillness spoke to everything that Myka hadn't the courage yet to put into words. But the moment passed, and after a toss of her head as dismissive and impatient as that of her horses, Helena said, "They never are, darling."

 


	6. Chapter 6

Helena stared at the columns of numbers. She had been staring at them so long that they seemed to crawl up and down the page. Rubbing her eyes, she reached for the cup of coffee on her desk. She much preferred a good cup of Earl Grey, but coffee was the only thing that cut through the haze of exhaustion that enveloped her these days. She wasn't sleeping well; in addition to familiar nightmares about Christina, she dreamed troubling dreams about MacPherson, in which he was chasing Joshua Donovan, aiming a gun at his back. And if she wasn't dreaming about MacPherson, she was dreaming about Myka, which had her moaning and thrashing in her bed for a completely different reason. What a minx that woman could be without even realizing it. Helena smiled to herself, recalling, as she frequently did, that morning in the _Journal_ 's office when Myka had applied the ointment to her fingers, rubbing it into her skin with a sensual stroking that had dissolved every bone in her body. And then Myka had looked up at her, those pale green eyes both sly and tender, teasing her about 'rough wooing' in a voice made husky by the intensity between them. It would have been enough to leave the most virtuous of women undone, and Helena had never prided herself on her virtue. In another place and time, she would have seduced Myka then or least made a sally at it; she was too experienced not to be able to persuade another to give in to his, or her, desire. But Myka's father had practically stumbled into the room, as if some vestige of paternal responsibility had woken him to the threat Helena posed to his daughter's innocence.

Yet Warren Bering's bleary disapproval of her presence wouldn't have been enough to stop her had she been determined to have Myka. She had been intimate with others under more challenging circumstances, when the risk of discovery wasn't mitigated by a closed door. It wasn't the unappealing setting of a newspaper office that had stopped her either; she had had encounters in worse places. It wasn't even that she would be taking from Myka something she should surrender to someone worthier of her; Helena had seduced virgins whose names she barely knew and never regretted it.

Her own desire had been the impediment. It threatened to turn what should be – and always had been before – a deliberate orchestration of movement and suggestion into a frenzied grinding of bodies. She had played the overcome lover many times, her gasping and eager fumbling designed to erode her partners' self-control; she remained in command and the pleasure she experienced, if she experienced it, she derived from how quickly she could bring them to a fever pitch. Feeling Myka's fingers graze her skin with the soft ticklishness of a strand of hair, Helena knew that she would be the one to break, to beg. She could hear the first hint of it in how she said Myka's name, half-sigh, half-groan, as if forced out by an intolerable pressure. So she had let the moment die, under Mr. Bering's sanctimonious disapproval (which still smarted more than she cared to admit) and Myka's shame.

While she would insist that she was responding to her own awareness of the danger Myka presented to her peace of mind, and not to the concerns of Warren Bering or any Sweetwater resident, that she was an inappropriate companion for a young woman of good character, she had limited their interactions. She let Leena play the librarian when Myka came to borrow books, and when she needed to discuss _Journal_ business, she ensured she conducted those conversations with Myka's father.

@

It hadn't helped. The jealousy she had displayed at the Donovan ranch, made only the more appalling because Claudia, though innocent or, just as possible, indifferent to its motivation, was all too appreciative of its exposure of a chink in Helena's armor, still simmered, rising like bile at the back of her throat whenever she saw Myka in the company of Sheriff Lattimer. One Saturday when Claudia had come to town, they passed Myka and the sheriff on a stroll along the main street. Helena had greeted them pleasantly enough, or so she thought, relieved in spite of herself that Myka neither clung to his arm nor seemed particularly aware of the affectionate glances he gave her, but they had no sooner gone by than Claudia stood on tiptoe to whisper in Helena's ear, "I think she and Jinksy make a better-looking couple, don't you?" Leena was no comfort, remarking over breakfast when Helena had growled at the consistency of her eggs and the toughness of her toast that "Self-denial doesn't become you."

Helena sought what solace she could in her work at the Spur. There were always discussions to be had with Freddie about the liquor supply and problem customers as well as tiffs and complaints among the girls to resolve. When nothing was pressing on those fronts, there were the saloon's accounts to manage. Which was what she was attempting to do now with little success. As she leaned back in her chair, drinking the truly awful coffee Freddie had made this morning, her eyes lighted on the latest week's _Journal_ , which had included an article revisiting the mysterious circumstances of Joshua Donovan's death. As Myka had vowed, the story kept to the facts, departing from them only at the end to comment on the injustice of a promising life cut short. Beyond receiving like-minded comments from its readers, the _Journal_ had garnered no information that could help identify Joshua's killer or killers.

A tiny bell affixed to the wall above Helena's head jingled once, twice, then stopped. A crude alert, nothing more than a cord crawling the walls from the bar to the office, it was nonetheless effective. Freddie would tug on the cord once to signal her to come out to the bar and twice if someone was coming back to the office to speak with her privately. Three rings, which were for emergencies only, meant Helena was to come out with her rifle loaded.

She knew better than to hope that Myka was coming to see her, but she couldn't pretend that her heart wasn't beating faster and that her hands weren't already touching her hair in needless reassurance that every strand was in place. No sooner had she assumed a position of studious concentration over the ledger than James MacPherson entered the room. Her annoyance wasn't feigned. "I don't remember our having an appointment this morning."

"I thought I might take the liberty of dropping by." He sat down on the chair across from the desk, making a minute adjustment to the line of his camel-colored pants. The scent of the pomade he used in his hair filled the room, rich yet with an oily undertone, much like the man himself, Helena decided. He smiled, but as usual it never reached his eyes, which remained hard and appraising. Scanning the discolored and marred walls, his eyes briefly lingered on the rifle in the corner before meeting Helena's impatient stare. "Every time I visit the Spur, I'm always surprised by how little you've invested in it. For all the money you paid me for it, I would have expected a gaming hall, for that matter, a brothel, worthy of New York or London."

"I invest my money in my employees."

"But they make for such a poor return," he tsked. "The more you give them, the more they expect, and the less they produce."

"Strange, but I've found the converse is true." Helena's smile was just as tight and cool. "Surely you didn't drop by only to question my business sense."

"Some of the council members still have doubts about the wisdom of increasing the vice tax on the Spur. They fear it imposes an unnecessary hardship."

"Even if it did, I suspect the tax wouldn't be reduced."

"I admit I don't share their concern." MacPherson crossed his legs and relaxed against the back of the chair. It cracked loudly in the quiet of the room, and he turned to determine whether it was on the verge of giving way. Looking back at Helena, he raised an eyebrow. "On the other hand, perhaps I should if you can't afford better chairs."

"Or perhaps I don't want visitors in my office prolonging their stay."

He shrugged, dismissing her barb. "As I told the council, much of Sheriff Lattimer's time is spent breaking up fights that start here. Or removing public nuisances." He paused. "The men who can't hold their drink. You must see them, the ones who can barely totter out the doors or whom Sheriff Lattimer has to escort." Rubbing his chin, he rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling as though he were trying to recall something. He let his glance flicker back to Helena. "I understand he's taken home the _Journal_ 's esteemed editor more than once."

Helena's smile didn't slip, but she began counting back from 100 in her mind. She hadn't needed to resort to such tactics before with MacPherson, but she realized she would be able to bear with only poor grace any comment he might make about Myka, and while she had formed no high opinion of Warren Bering as a man, he was Myka's father. "It's generally your men who are the cause of the problems," she said. "I've been thinking of levying my own tax on the Circle M men when they come to the saloon."

He laughed soundlessly. "Quite amusing. And will you levy an additional tax when they visit your girls?"

"A good number of them aren't allowed to visit my girls."

He wagged his head in disbelief. "How you stay in business is beyond my understanding. One might think you believe your whores should be accorded special treatment. Why such a soft spot for them, Mrs. Wells?"

She ignored that knowing, gloating tone in his voice. She had ignored it the past three years. "By 'special treatment' do you mean recognizing that they're human?" A tic appeared in his cheek, the only sign that she had scored a hit.

From the moment she had first stepped off the train in Sweetwater, with her accent and her unusual traveling companion and her wardrobe that cost more than some men made in a lifetime, MacPherson had tried to ferret out information about her. He was rich and well-connected enough to learn some things, who or, rather, what she was before she came to Sweetwater and other names she had gone by. Though he maintained a certain level of circumspection when they were with others, limiting himself to the occasional veiled reference, when they had private conversations, his allusions grew broader and cruder. She let him enjoy showing off his knowledge of her secrets; for one thing, they weren't secrets, and for another, she preferred to let him believe he knew all there was to know about her. It helped to protect what she did want to keep from him.

"Certainly they're a far cry from a woman of pleasure like Charlotte Ramsey," he said. It wasn't the first time he had used the name in front of her, and as she always did when he flourished it like a magician's handkerchief, she maintained a front of polite disinterest. "It's said that an Astor paid $5,000 for an evening with her, never regretting a penny. And my friends tell me that Henry Tremaine still hasn't gotten over her sudden disappearance from his life. Supposedly he's turned New York upside down looking for her. Now, there's a. . . ." He leaned forward and fixed his eyes on her. "Well, how else can I put it? A whore who deserves special treatment."

"Whether she can command $5,000 or only 50 cents, she deserves to be treated with respect," Helena said, her eyes steadily meeting his.

MacPherson was the first to look away. Appearing to have tired of his game, he got up from the chair, looking askance at the seat, as if some uncleanliness, a food crumb or a flake of tobacco, had attached itself to his suit. Satisfied that he was carrying no mark of the Spur on him, he spent a moment adjusting the fall of his sleeves. She should have known by such an obvious stalling tactic that he was waiting until he had her attention before he launched a departing remark that he was confident would burrow under her skin, something better than jabs about Charlotte Ramsey. Later she wasn't sure what had given her away; it could have been as subtle as a twitch of her mouth when he had referred to Warren Bering. But he was always on the lookout for a weakness, and somehow, in some way, she had betrayed herself. "You seem to have taken quite an interest in the Berings, particularly Miss Bering. I don't recall you ever taking Mr. Sanderson out in your carriage."

Had he actually seen them that Saturday when they had driven past his ranch, or did he have spies everywhere? But she only blinked at him lazily, like a cat, with no especial curiosity. "Mr. Sanderson had a conveyance of his own. Miss Bering does not."

"I admit that she's a more attractive companion than Ralph Sanderson, though not to my tastes. She's a gawky thing, and her hair's frightful." His lips crimped in distaste.

"No doubt you would prefer her with a key in her back."

"Oh, I don't mind a little fire in a woman, Mrs. Wells. It makes taming her all the more pleasurable." His dark eyes bored into hers. When Helena didn't flinch, he again was the first to look away, pretending to examine the shine of his cuff links. "I mention Miss Bering not only because I find the sad spectacle of her father poor advertisement for the _Journal_ but also, since she too is associated with the paper, I'm concerned that her less than sterling character may further damage its reputation."

Helena's jaw had so firmly clamped shut that her molars were beginning to grind against each other. Starting another countdown from 100, she drew in a breath and said evenly, "Since you've never once indicated in the time I've owned the _Journal_ that its reputation was something that even crossed your mind, let alone weighed on it, I'm hard-pressed to know how to answer your concern, except to say, one, I don't listen to gossip, and, two, my concern is only that the Berings produce a newspaper worth reading."

"How can you keep readers when they see that the editor is a drunkard and his daughter a slut? I hear that Sheriff Lattimer is so often at their home that he might as well be paying rent. Do you know that one of the papers Warren Bering worked for dismissed him because his daughter's behavior called his judgment into question?" For the first time since he had entered the office, MacPherson's smile was genuine, broad and full of malice.

Lightheaded, Helena forgot where she was in her count. If the rifle in the corner had been loaded, she wouldn't have just pointed it at him, she would have shot him. But instead she had to remain at her desk, frozen in place, her face as still and as expressionless as she could make it. She knew he was goading her, but knowing that didn't stop her legs from shaking under her desk. The jibe about Sheriff Lattimer, she recognized, was only MacPherson indulging in gratuitous spite, but it left an ache in her all the same.

"She was keeping company with some young man, a thoroughgoing scoundrel by all accounts. The two disappeared overnight in a storm, and when a search party went out later to find them, well, let's say they were found in a compromising situation, _most_ compromising." He rested his hands on the back of the chair, leaning forward like a prosecutor ready to conclude a winning argument before a judge. "When her father demanded that her seducer, Martino I believe his name was, preserve what remained of her reputation by marrying her, it came to light that he was a bigamist. The Berings became laughingstocks, and the paper's publisher felt he had little choice but to ask Bering to move on. He feared the paper would lose all credibility."

Helena closed the ledger. She wouldn't be returning to the accounts, not today. She could hear Leena's voice in her mind, counseling her not to let her temper get the better of her. But the voice was too weak to withstand the fury that had begun to build from the moment MacPherson said 'Miss Bering.' "I don't know who told you this story," she said slowly.

"Oh, it's not a story. You can verify it yourself with the publisher of the Colorado Springs _Gazette_."

"Or why," Helena continued, undeterred. Both the pacing of her words and their force increased. "But let me tell you what I know about the Berings. I know that Warren Bering has a talent for uncovering corruption and chicanery and that the papers he has worked for have brought down men who, if they were well founded in their belief that they were above the law, discovered they weren't above public opinion. He's also the kind of newspaperman who won't let rest the murder of a young man who was no more the victim of cattle rustlers than Miss Bering is a trollop."

MacPherson rounded the chair to stand in front of the desk, thrusting his face close to Helena's. "Sweetwater is hardly a cesspool of corruption, and as for poor Mr. Donovan, there was no evidence pointing to anything other than an unfortunate encounter with outlaws. All the Berings will succeed in doing, Mrs. Wells, is creating trouble where none exists, and that would be a distressing outcome for everyone."

"I can only hope that you find it distressing, _most_ distressing," Helena said mockingly, her eyes flashing fire. She rose, causing MacPherson to begrudgingly inch himself backward. "And should we happen to find a cesspool, I'm sure you'll be at the bottom of it."

Flushing with anger, he spun away and stalked to the door. He reached for the knob but stopped mid-motion, leveling at Helena a menacing glare. "A whore is always a whore. Strip away her airs and her fancy dresses and the causes she adopts, and she'll spread her legs for the right price. I have only to find yours, Mrs. Wells."

"Whores on occasion may bestow their favors for free, but even then, Mr. MacPherson, you still couldn't afford me."

He slammed the door behind him, and Helena sank back onto her chair. She covered her face with her hands and groaned. She had done precisely what she had cautioned Myka that they shouldn't do – she had poked at MacPherson with a stick. She may have succeeded in getting in a jab or two around his eyes, but it was a sour satisfaction; all she had really accomplished was to let him know that she and the _Journal_ were on the hunt for him and, worse, that she was vulnerable where Myka Bering was concerned. She imagined Leena regarding her with disappointment, knowing better than anyone how much Helena was guided by her emotions. The mind that delighted in machines and scientific hypotheses was all too frequently charged with justifying the decisions that her emotions had already made.

She groaned again when she heard a knock at the door. Freddie craned his head around the jamb. "Thought you might like a refill."

She raised a hand in protest. "I've had enough coffee, thank you."

He grinned, showing her the bottle he had held behind his back. "It's got to be noon somewhere in the world, right?" He poured the whiskey in her cup, adding more after he took another look at her face. "I saw him leave."

Helena didn't pretend to sip. She took a gulp and enjoyed the burn down her throat. He was a dear man, and at this moment, she didn't care that his face hadn't seen soap and water in over a week or that his apron had needed changing two days ago. Freddie had been the saloon's janitor, dishwasher, and man of all purpose when she bought the saloon from MacPherson. Another man had been the bartender then, with a consumptive's emaciated frame but an avid eye for squeezing as much money as he could from the clientele, watering drinks and substituting rotgut for the better liquors where and when he could. He had also arranged with the card sharps who routinely visited the Spur to take a small percentage of their winnings in exchange for ignoring their blatant cheating at the tables. He had lasted less than a week under the new regime, and Helena put Freddie behind the bar. He dealt fairly with their customers and was gentle with the girls, and beyond that, he was a large, powerful man who could intimidate any drunken cowboy looking for a fight.

Blessedly he also had the capacity to recognize when she wanted silence and solitude. He put the bottle on her desk and stole quietly from the room. She tipped back in her chair until the back of it landed lightly against the wall. She wasn't sure how steady it would remain under her, but she didn't care, cradling her cup against her chest. She closed her eyes. Charlotte Ramsey. Before that, it had been Emily Lake, and before that, it had been Emily Curran. She had last been Helena Wells when she first arrived in New York over twelve years ago. She had booked passage on the steamer from Marseille as she had done most things back then, with an abandon that her companions mistook for mere pleasure-seeking. With the last of her 'blood money' as she had called it, she purchased a ticket for a country she had never seen and had never had much interest in visiting. She had no idea what would become of her once she landed in New York, nor did she care. Early on in the journey, she struck up an acquaintance with an American businessman returning home, and soon she was staying in his stateroom, a much grander one than her own. He was pleasant-looking with an amiable disposition, which was all that mattered. He was a serviceable enough distraction, and she was less likely to have nightmares about Christina when she slept in someone else's bed.

He wore no wedding ring nor mentioned a wife, but it was clear to Helena that he was married. His clumsy attempts at seduction, his wide-eyed appreciation of intimacies that had become routine to her spoke of a man who rarely strayed from the familiar, if dull, fidelities of marriage. The night before they landed in New York, he had insisted that they meet in her room, and in the early morning hours she woke to see him, fully dressed, carefully placing money on the top of her bureau. She didn't say a word as he left the room. She had briefly considered throwing it away, but it was a generous sum. In the eighteen months since she had left London with only the money she had received from Charles in her possession, she hadn’t taken care to husband it or her reputation. She had woken in more strange beds than she cared to remember, and if the men who had occupied those beds with her hadn’t paid her, it was only because they had lost their stipends at the gaming table tables the night before. Once their indulgent fathers or uncles replenished their funds, they would be anxious to seek new diversions with new friends; she couldn’t blame them since she would be doing the same. She had been a whore in all but name – and employment – since she had fled that depressing boardinghouse, Charles’ check crumpled in her hand. All this American had done was pay her for services rendered. She couldn’t take exception to that.

She saw him once more as they were disembarking from the ship, and his eyes brushed her face only to swiftly move on, as if hers was no different from the hundreds of faces turned eagerly toward the city. In a rare act of thriftiness, she found lodgings at a boardinghouse, genteel if somewhat rundown, that she had overheard one of the passengers recommend to another. For a few days she mulled over her options, reading the classified section of the newspapers, but no one wanted a woman who was a skilled, if self-taught, machinist or could speak several languages. The openings were for maids or nannies, and Helena wasn't desperate enough yet for the former and the latter – she would never be able to bear being the caretaker of another woman's child. Never that.

As her money dwindled, she remembered the name of a man her friends (and she used that term loosely, having recognized them at the time for the hangers-on and leeches that they were) had urged her to look up once she was in New York. Alan Lawrence was handsome and charming, but he couldn't look at anything without appraising its value, whether it be a fine horse, a painting, or a woman. Even when he became her lover, which he did with an ease and a rapidity that Helena would have once – once – found unthinkable, he seemed to be evaluating her, grading every kiss and caress on a scale. Rolling away from him one afternoon, she asked almost sulkily, "Am I a disappointment?"

"Far from it. You're quite talented," he said, sitting up in the bed and placing a pillow behind his back. "I feel that you're wasting it all on me."

"Wasting it?"

Running a finger down her shoulder, he said, "I know a gentleman, more than one, actually, who would be very appreciative of you and very generous in their appreciation."

She had known, hadn't she? The friends who had given her Alan's name, they often showed up at theaters and restaurants with different men and women on their arms. Their clothes became more expensive and stylish, they held themselves with more confidence, and they more readily paid their share of the entertainment, whatever it happened to be. And they had told her to make sure to look up Lawrence if ever she was in need. She had been in need – she still was –and only now she was having the vapors like a frightened virgin? She was just following the course that she had marked for herself when, only a few days after she had arrived in Paris from London, she had allowed a handsome man, with knowing eyes much older than his appearance, to escort her from the Louvre to dinner and then, from dinner, to her rooms.

"And how, darling," she rolled back toward him, "would I go about meeting them?"

Lawrence set her up in a suite of rooms he had rented and bought her a new wardrobe; the dresses were more revealing than was befitting for a lady and in vulgar colors, but the men who came to see her liked them. Their hands had more freedom to travel, and the cheaper fabric parted more easily under their groping. Two things she insisted on, keeping the locket she always wore, which Lawrence derided as an ugly piece of jewelry, and changing her name. It wasn't likely that the men she was consorting with would recognize the name "Wells" and she didn't care that her father and mother and brother would die with shame were they to know what she was doing, but changing her name made living with the memories of her grandfather less painful. So she used the name Emily Curran until Lawrence one day frowned in distaste, saying "It sounds Irish, and it makes the men think they're giving the housemaid a tumble. They can get that for free. You need to sell them an illusion."

"Meaning I need to sell them that I'm a lady?"

"You sold me," he said, his brows wrinkling in momentary confusion. "You can sell them."

She laughed then, the irony, she knew, utterly lost on him, but she changed her name to Emily Lake. She might have continued her arrangement with Lawrence, providing him a hefty percentage of her earnings, until he found someone younger and fresher, but one of the gentlemen she saw on a regular basis asked her to accompany him to a party, which was being held at a nondescript brownstone in a fashionable area of Manhattan. Compared to the other women there, in gowns she wouldn't have been embarrassed to wear to an event in London, she knew she looked like a tart, and her companion was clearly a station or two below the men playing billiards and smoking in the drawing room. But she would be damned if she would act the streetwalker, even if she resembled one. Her drawl more pronounced, her expression the replica of her mother's polite froideur, she acted the part of the grande dame, and there wasn't a man at the party who didn't take notice of her. As the evening wound down, and Helena was choosing between the young heir to a banking fortune and a portly, middle-aged man who was the owner of a successful bootblacking factory, a woman, older than the others, interrupted her flirtation, asking if she could have a moment of Helena's time.

Helena followed her into a parlor temporarily empty of guests. The woman closed the door. "You're taking clients away from my girls," she said. She stated it as a fact, coolly and neutrally, but her eyes, a rain-washed gray, were regarding her with an intensity that Helena instinctively registered as a threat. The woman was still lovely, although the lines around her mouth and the gray at her temples suggested that she was old enough to be Helena's mother. "Who sent you here?"

Helena knew the woman would not take kindly to being lied to. "No one sent me here. Mr. Bagley is a friend, and he invited me to accompany him."

"Mr. Bagley is a department store manager who couldn't get an invitation to a shoe-shine of any one of these men," the woman said dismissively. "I don't appreciate having my parties worked by a girl from someone else's stable. Who runs you?"

Helena silently cursed Lawrence. He had heard about the party and put a bug into Bagley's ear to take her. She should have known as soon as she stepped onto the Italian marble of the foyer that there had been no invitation extended to Bagley. Lawrence had wanted to see whom she could poach. "Alan Lawrence," she said.

"He's a two-bit hustler." The woman cocked her head, looking Helena up and down. "I would have had you thrown out except that you put on quite a performance. I've never had one of my girls so captivate a roomful of men." She paused, biting her lip. "How much does Lawrence pay you?"

"Not as much as you will," Helena said, giving the woman a cocky smile.

That was how she became one of Elizabeth Sloan's girls. She left the rooms Lawrence had let for her the same night and moved into the brownstone. It became her home for the next few months until she and the other women residing there were moved to an identical brownstone in an equally exclusive neighborhood. During the years that Helena worked for Mrs. Sloan the process was repeated several times, and she soon learned to keep little more with her than her clothing, toiletries, and a few books. There were never any reasons given for the moves; Mrs. Sloan simply issued the order through her assistant, a scarred, ominously muscled rough named Kincaid, who knocked on their doors telling them they needed to be "up and packed" by the next morning. Helena always assumed that once their neighbors figured out that the house next door was actually a brothel, they complained to the police or the city officials and they, in turn, warned Mrs. Sloan. Mrs. Sloan had a cozy relationship with the police and the city government; the commissioner and many of the officials closest to the mayor were frequent "guests" of Mrs. Sloan, and sometimes they would come to the house, not seeking the pleasure of the girls, but for fat brown envelopes that they would stuff into the pockets of their coats as they left.

Helena received no such fat envelopes. The men never paid her directly, paying Mrs. Sloan or, more frequently, Kincaid instead, and she received whatever Mrs. Sloan had decreed was the going wage at the time. It was not uncommon for the men, generally wealthy and well connected, to give their favorites among the girls gifts of jewelry or money, and Helena was very popular. But it was an unwritten rule that such gifts had to be reported to Mrs. Sloan, and she would determine how much of the gift the girl could keep. Still, it was more money than Helena had realized working for Lawrence, even though she knew it was only a fraction of the price that Mrs. Sloan charged her clients. But Helena's needs were simple, and she was able to save most of the money she earned. Without articulating to herself why she was doing it, she began to invest the money in speculative ventures, and while some bore no fruit, others provided a tidy return, which she then reinvested. All the girls were given one day off a week, and Helena usually spent that day reading the financial sections of the various newspapers and making decisions as to how she would invest her funds.

She made virtually no attempts to become acquainted with the other girls. Mrs. Sloan didn't encourage camaraderie among her employees, most likely, Helena suspected, because she didn't want the girls to discover how little each of them was getting, but that couldn't answer for the girls' naked resentment of Helena's presence. She knew they called her the Duchess behind her back, and faced with their jealousy and dislike, she was only the more haughty when she was with them. Besides, most of the girls' tenures with Mrs. Sloan were short ones. Some fell victim to the usual consequences of the work, pregnancy or the pox, neither of which Mrs. Sloan tolerated, and while the former and sometimes the latter could be remedied by a visit to the doctor on her payroll, there was no guarantee that she would take the woman back. Others became too fond of the bottle or were laudanum users, and when their addictions grew uncontrollable or impaired their work or appearance, they soon disappeared from the house. Only rarely would a girl so charm a client that he would make her his mistress and establish her in her own home or apartment.

She heard rumors that Mrs. Sloan ran another house in which clients with more “specialized” tastes were served, but she knew better than to ask any questions. Asking questions attracted attention, and no girl wanted to be the object of Mrs. Sloan’s attention. Helena heard that girls who were considered troublemakers but were still valuable enough to Mrs. Sloan for her to keep them ended up at the other house as punishment. Supposedly, the girls sent to the other house never returned. Although Helena had grown up hearing how her “smart remarks” were going to get her into trouble, she was careful to keep her responses as colorless as Mrs. Sloan herself on those rare occasions when the older woman spoke to her. She could only marvel that the cheekiness she had shown to Mrs. Sloan upon first meeting her hadn’t resulted in her being dumped on Lawrence’s doorstep with a black eye and broken teeth.

As for the work itself, Helena found the coquetry and playing up to the men before they retired to her room the most arduous aspect of it. Having to flatter the old men with their gouty noses and ample paunches that they were as virile as men half their age or reassure the younger men that they were Casanova reincarnated was tiresome. What irritated her the most, however, was having to pretend that she had no mind for literature or politics or science and to smile gratefully at her clients as they eagerly took on the task of educating her. They had no idea how often she was tempted to correct their mistakes. At least the physical intimacies were straightforward and, for the most part, quickly accomplished. Initially she found being in bed with men old, young, and in-between interesting, if only from a scientific point of view. For all the differences in their backgrounds and vocations, they were remarkably similar, in the end, in their sexual tastes. While there were those who needed to feel pain or inflict it to achieve release, Helena was never required to service them, Mrs. Sloan, offering her a rare, if backhanded, compliment by declaring that the whiteness of her skin was too valuable to run the risk of it being permanently scarred by an overenthusiastic client. The most unusual tastes Helena was asked to satisfy involved the voyeurs or the men who required multiple partners. Some men wanted to see her in bed with another man or they wanted a man to join them as a sexual partner; other men wanted to see her or share her with a woman.

Until she worked for Mrs. Sloan, Helena had never been intimate with another woman or, for that matter, considered being intimate with another woman. Most women Helena had known and these included women from families superior in wealth or status to her own were silly, simpering fools, willing to act the idiot for a man, or women, like her mother, who based their self-worth on how efficiently they ran a household. She couldn't abide either type, despite having to play the former on an almost nightly basis. But, in the end, she discovered that sex with a woman was little different from sex with a man; it was all just flesh and noise. When she led Mr. Hankins upstairs, giving Josie, a snub-nosed brunette across the room, a jerk of her head as a signal that she should join them, she felt no better or worse than when it was Mr. Benedict and she would nod to Timothy, one of the handful of young men Mrs. Sloan also employed, to follow them to her room.

One early autumn afternoon, which was distinctive only for the fact that it marked the second year that she had been with Mrs. Sloan, Helena was requested to attend to Mr. Hankins in another residence. In Mrs. Sloan's carriage, Kincaid drove her to yet another brownstone in yet another area of Manhattan. When Helena asked about the different arrangements, Kincaid only grunted in response, and she got down from the carriage no wiser about why she was meeting Mr. Hankins here and at this time of day than she had been earlier. As she had been instructed, she knocked on the door to the bedroom at the end of the second floor corridor, and a woman told her to enter.

The curtains had been drawn against the afternoon sun, but the gas jets had been lit, and Helena saw that Mr. Hankins was sitting in a chair close to the footboard of the enormous bed that took up most of the room. He was wearing, as he usually did during their appointments, a loosely belted robe. Mr. Hankins was solely a watcher, although, unlike her clients with similar appetites, he seemed to equally enjoy watching Helena with men and women. In the center of the bed, naked except for a sheet draped casually across her hips was the most beautiful woman Helena thought she had ever seen. Blond hair, the pale yellow of butter, spilled down her shoulders, and her complexion was so fair that the blue of her eyes seemed to gleam against her skin like sapphires.

She was balancing a glass of champagne on the mattress. "Come, get undressed, Alfie has been waiting, and I'm not sure how much longer he can wait." She laughed, a deep, good-humored laugh, and even Mr. Hankins (always Mr. Hankins to Helena), generally a silent man, issued a small chuckle.

Helena, normally graceful when she disrobed, fumbled at her buttons and ended up tripping over her dress. A robe lay over the back of a chair for her and just as she was about to slip it on, the woman called to her lazily from the bed, "Don't put it on just yet. Turn around. Alfie's been telling me how beautiful you are, and I want to see for myself."

Annoyed at the command implicit in the woman's voice, Helena nevertheless complied and turned toward the bed, letting the robe fall to the floor. The woman's eyes swept over her, then more slowly made their way down, lingering over Helena's breasts, her abdomen, the juncture of her thighs. "My God, you are beautiful," the woman said and then, her voice roughening, added, "Hurry over, I'm not sure how much longer I can wait." Helena assumed the appreciation in the woman’s voice and her urging for Helena to hurry were part of the act. Sometimes their clients enjoyed it when the girls were vocal about how much they wanted each other. Helena had made similar remarks, and she had looked at the girls she would be intimate with in much the same way she was being looked at now. Yet it wasn’t the same way, it wasn’t the usual professional flick up her body and then down. The woman’s eyes lingered on her when they didn’t need to. Helena had been surveyed, perused, appraised, measured, evaluated, weighed, appreciated, and admired thousands of times before but for the first time in a long time, she felt herself responding with something other than boredom or irritation. The blush began in her face and spread south, and the woman clapped in delight, almost upsetting her glass of champagne. The woman leaned over, placing the glass on a nightstand, the sheet slipping from her hips. Helena saw a thatch of pubic hair that was nearly as blond as the hair on the woman's head; she also had a better view of a body that was long and firmly muscled, with high, full breasts. Realizing that her heart rate had increased and that her palms were beginning to sweat, Helena wondered why it was this afternoon, with this woman that, for once, she could almost forget that she was a whore.

The woman patted the bed next to her. The smile she shared with Mr. Hankins was lascivious, but when she turned her head to meet Helena's nervous, faintly inquiring gaze, those amazing eyes gentled and while the frank desire in them took Helena's breath away, the sympathy in them returned it. "My name is Monika," she volunteered, "and I think we are going to become the best of friends." She intertwined her fingers with Helena's, carefully pulling her down onto the mattress beside her, and for the rest of that afternoon and into the evening, Helena did forget that she was a whore.

 


	7. Chapter 7

They never met outside their sessions with the clientele; Helena never saw her at the (newest) brownstone, and she wondered if Monika lived in the house where the more troublesome of Mrs. Sloan’s girls were “disciplined.” Yet Monika didn’t display any reluctance to return to her lodgings, and she never referred to any of her clients with fear or disgust. Contempt, yes, but then all the girls felt contempt for the men they serviced, their needs, their laughable fantasies. It was harder work, frequently, to maintain the smiles and the willingness to please that the men expected of them than to endure the press of their bodies. Although Helena had fully expected not to see Monika again after their appointment with Mr. Hankins, she saw her twice more that week (once with Mr. Hankins, who had apparently enjoyed their previous session, and then with another man), and three times the next. Their encounters became more numerous and more frequent as it wasn't just Mr. Hankins and others like him who requested them. Men whom Helena had never known to show an interest in watching women together asked for them. Soon she learned that there was even a special name for them, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, a marginal improvement, she supposed, over being designated by a pointing finger and "The dark one," which was what she more commonly experienced.

Monika enjoyed the comparison, though she recognized the inherent absurdity of likening any aspect of what they did to a fairy tale, at least the sunnier parts of one. As she and Helena lay next to each other in various beds in various houses, sometimes before their client arrived but more typically after he had left, she would lift strands of Helena's hair, letting them fall back onto the pillow, and muse about which of them was Snow White. One day she would argue that Helena was Snow White because of her dark hair, and the next Monika would claim that she was Snow White because she was more 'snow white' than Helena. At other times she would say teasingly that Helena must be Sleeping Beauty because she snored when she slept. Helena didn't care, not even about the snoring, entranced by Monika's lightly accented alto, the way it seemed to skim over certain consonants and cling to others, the remnant of her early years in Germany, or so Monika said.

Had she been pressed to describe her relationship with Monika, Helena would have described it as an amusement. Although the pleasure they took in one another was unfeigned and independent of whether they were alone or sharing the bed with a client, Helena didn't think overmuch about Monika when they weren't together, didn't yearn for her, didn't try to put a name to her feelings, whatever they were. She was aware that some of the girls developed attachments to each other, sharing a room when they weren't being called to work in separate ones. As she would pass through the corridors during the day, she could hear them, their moans, the dull thumping of their beds, but she would have scoffed at the idea that she and Monika shared anything with them. Yet Helena recognized, despite the fact that she had confided nothing about herself to Monika and didn't know what Monika's last name was or what her life had been before she came to work for Mrs. Sloan, that she hadn't felt as close to someone since her grandfather died.

During one long, lovely afternoon when snow was falling outside the windows and they had the room to themselves, their client never having shown up and neither Helena nor Monika inclined to send for the carriages that would take them to their respective houses, they lolled in bed, idly drawing traceries on each other's skin. Monika's fingertip slowly followed a line, not long or large but with the tight, shiny look of a scar, that was low on Helena's stomach. "What happened to your child?" she asked softly.

Helena considered not answering but said with a clipped finality to discourage further questions, "I don't have her anymore."

"Did she die?" Monika persisted.

"No." Said even more grimly.

"And yet you grieve." Helena felt the mattress shift, and Monika leaned over to nuzzle her face into Helena's neck, leaving a string of kisses. "You've come from a good family, you've had advantages, but here you are with the rest of us working for Mrs. Sloan. I think I understand now, yours is the slow suicide."

Helena lifted her head, reluctantly meeting the blue eyes that were regarding her curiously but not unkindly. "Most of us are here because we know nothing else or were driven to it out of desperation. But a very few are here because they chose to be here. Instead of putting a gun to their heads or taking poison, they wait for disease to eat them up or for Mrs. Sloan to decide they're too ugly or worn out to keep around. They drift. They don't want to live anymore but they can't bring themselves to die."

"And that's what you think I'm doing?" Helena demanded hoarsely, sliding away from her toward the other side of the bed.

Monika shrugged. "You shouldn't be here. Why else would you stay?"

"What about you?"

Another shrug. "Another story for another day." She burrowed deeper into the bed, and they were quiet for awhile. Helena's eyelids fluttered shut; the room was too warm and sleep was an escape from talking. Suddenly a hand grabbed her calf and pulled her toward the center of the bed. Monika launched herself over her, arms planted on either side of Helena's head. Need and something else as fierce, the compulsion to flee her own demons, had burned away the sorrow clouding Monika's eyes. "If we can't save ourselves," she whispered, "we should enjoy each other before we drown."

Then one day she was gone. It was another blonde waiting for Helena in the bed, not nearly as lovely, her lips remaining stubbornly downturned when Helena sat beside her, signaling that Helena was as much to be suffered as Mr. Hankins. But Mr. Hankins seemed oblivious to the fact that Snow White or Sleeping Beauty (did it matter now which Monika had been?) had been replaced by one of Cinderella's stepsisters, fussing with the belt of his robe as the other woman listlessly fondled Helena's breast. After several weeks and long after her fears had undermined her belief that Monika had been assigned to other clients, Helena reluctantly asked Kincaid what had happened as he helped her into the carriage. At first he ignored her, then as her questions became more plaintive, he smiled smugly at her. Helena wondered if he was going to require her to pleasure him in exchange for information. It wouldn't be the first time that he had extorted the touch of her hand or mouth on him for something that cost him nothing to provide or which he was already being paid by Mrs. Sloan to do, such as taking her to the latest brownstone that was "home." Helena was preparing to invite him into the carriage with her when he said cryptically, "She took something that wasn't hers." He shut the door behind her and climbed to his seat, refusing to say anything more.

Helena remembered another afternoon with Monika, when Monika was out of the bed, wearing a robe and removing the sheets with swift efficiency.  She must have had a client not long before, and putting fresh sheets on the bed before the next arrived was an observance toward some kind of gentility or practicality, Helena wasn’t sure which, that Mrs. Sloan insisted upon.  From a drawer built into the bottom of the bedframe, Helena took out sheets and helped Monika tuck them in under the mattress, the dirty sheets they pushed under the bed, out of sight.  When the last corner was tucked under, Monika crossed over to Helena’s side of the bed and took Helena’s hand and put it in a pocket of her robe.

Helena felt something cool and hard, metallic, but she didn’t remove it right away, using her other hand to untie the belt of Monika’s robe.  She slipped her hand underneath Monika’s breast, thumbing the nipple to a peak.  “I much prefer touching this to whatever’s in your pocket.”  She laughed and kissed the base of Monika’s neck, letting her tongue linger in the notch of her collarbone.

Uncharacteristically Monika backed away, shaking her head.  “We don’t have time before Mr. Judson arrives.”  The something metallic in her pocket was a necklace with an emerald pendant, which she held out to Helena in the palm of her hand.  “Mr. Brewster gave me this today.  He told me I was a ‘priceless jewel.’”

The necklace was heavy in Helena’s hand.  The gold felt pure, and the emerald looked real.  “Does he want to set you up?”  She knew she should be glad that Monika might have an opportunity to leave Mrs. Sloane’s employ, but she felt an unfamiliar anger that some man, this Mr. Brewster, would have Monika all to himself, as if she were an expensive stone that he had chosen to reset – in a well-appointed house, no doubt, with well-trained servants – and could view and fondle at his leisure.

Monika raised her shoulders in an indifferent shrug.  “Maybe.  But that’s not what I want.  I will put that necklace with my other gifts, and one day I will sell them to a jeweler.”  She stepped away from her robe, which had been slowly pooling onto the floor, and took the necklace and fastened it around Helena’s neck.  She stood back, head tipped, assessing how Helena looked with it on.  “It would look better if you were wearing nothing at all,” she said.  “Let me remedy that.” 

As she began to unbutton Helena’s dress, kissing the skin the material revealed as the buttons were released, Helena said, with a note of concern, “You are informing Mrs. Sloan of those gifts, aren’t you?”

“When I remember,” Monika said casually.  She stopped the unbuttoning long enough to kiss Helena on the lips.  The recklessly teasing smile didn’t lighten the suddenly serious look Monica was giving her.  “Someday I’ll have enough money to leave Mrs. Sloan.” She let the teasing smile reappear in her eyes. “I will write you from the Riviera.  Maybe I’ll ask you to join me.  If I’m feeling very generous, I’ll take you with me when I go.”

Mr. Judson arrived only minutes later, and then there was no time to talk of the necklace or Monika’s plans.  Mr. Judson took no notice of the necklace, no notice of them, not above their waists, anyway.  Afterward, when he had left, Helena unclasped the necklace and gave it back to Monika.  “Doesn’t whatever brute Mrs. Sloan has bring you here search you?”  He didn’t do it all the time, but Kincaid would run his hands down Helena’s dress and then up her skirts, grinning as his fingers roughly probed her.

Monika smiled, letting the back of her knuckles trail down Helena’s cheek.  “I make sure that he’s too busy with me in other ways.”

Monika had shown her no other gifts she had received, and there had been no more references to her escaping to the Riviera. But it was entirely possible, probable in fact, that Monika’s hiding of the gifts had been discovered. Her worries intensifying, Helena swallowed her pride and approached one of the girls in the house who had been with Mrs. Sloan the longest. But the woman shook her head at Monika's name and when Helena asked what Kincaid meant when he said Monika had taken something that wasn't hers, the woman's face closed in on itself with fear and she said harshly, "Asking questions like that causes trouble. That girl is gone. Safest thing to do is to forget about her."

Helena didn't forget about her, couldn't help but hope every time she saw a blond head in a room that the rest of her would belong to Monika, but when the woman turned toward her, the eyes would be brown or green or she would speak and the voice would be too high-pitched, too girlish, the accent Irish or Scottish or native New York, not German. It seemed to her now that every woman had a lover in the house and the off-hours of her days were filled with the sounds of their lovemaking. Helena would take refuge under the covers of her bed and crush a pillow over her ears. It wasn't so much time but the unending flow of bodies and their inescapable sameness, no matter how thin or fat or hairy each in its specificity might be, that succeeded in blurring the distinctiveness of Monika's features in Helena's mind and transforming the complexion Monika once proudly compared to a pearl to the undifferentiated grays in which Helena visually clothed all her clients. In the end, Monika became just another shadowy figure in another room and their moments together nothing more than flesh and noise.

When she thought she couldn't be surprised anymore, not by the tricks she performed or favors she was asked to grant, or the casual indignities that were a part of being bought and sold, she was surprised. She discovered she was pregnant. Although the symptoms were familiar, she had been slow to recognize what they meant. And once she did, she wrapped her arms around her stomach and rocked back and forth on the bed. She couldn't carry a child and remain in Mrs. Sloan's employ. If she wanted to carry the child. Once upon a time, she hadn't wanted to carry Christina either, but that had changed. She stopped rocking and pulled up the shift she was wearing and glanced down at her belly, just beginning to swell. She would never know who its father was, and there were any number of men who could have fathered her child.  She shuddered at the possibility that the father might be Mr. Akins, who would offhandedly comment that he had "broken in" a new housemaid, or Mr. Bascomb, who never called her Emily or any name because, as he said, "Whores should have numbers, not names." Or Kincaid. On the other hand, the contempt she had grown to feel for Christina's father hadn't diminished her love for her daughter. She could love this child, too. If she wanted to.

She had been so used to not feeling – it was too much to take in all at once, and she didn't have the luxury of time. Surely there was no girl in the house who hadn't heard her retching of a morning into a basin. She needed to get to Mrs. Sloan before one of them did. This wasn't a day that Mrs. Sloan was normally in the house, but she did set aside a few mornings or afternoons a week to go over the house's business affairs and to mete out disciplinary actions to girls who were flouting her rules or, worse, displeasing the clients. Helena wasn't one of the "difficult" girls, which, she reflected wryly, would amaze her family were they to know of it, but she didn't entertain the belief that anything positive would come of the meeting. She lay on her side, her hand automatically stroking her abdomen. She had found the motion soothing when she was carrying Christina, and she began to relax, the even, repetitive rhythm of the stroking lulling her to sleep. She had saved enough money that she could leave Mrs. Sloan and care for the baby, for awhile, at any rate. It wouldn't have to turn out like before. She was both wiser and harder now. She could do it . . . if she wanted to.

Mrs. Sloan held her office in, rather held court in, a cramped room off what had once been the morning room of the house, but which had become another parlor or drawing room for the men when they were ready to select their girls for the evening, less by conversation than by pinching or tweaking or groping the girls, as if they were fruit whose ripeness had to be tested before they were chosen. The furniture in her office, compared to that in the main rooms, was utilitarian, acquired at second- or third-hand, and consisting of little more than a desk and a few straight-backed chairs.

There was no catching Mrs. Sloan in a good mood. She had no moods. The dry, remote voice that Helena had first heard three years ago had never once changed in volume or expression. It, like her eyes, was as colorless as rain. "You'll have to see the doctor" was all Mrs. Sloan said when Helena told her that she was pregnant.

Moving uncomfortably on one of the chairs, the wood as unyielding as stone, Helena covered her unease with a practiced light laugh. Though jollying Mrs. Sloan was a Sisyphean task, she could try to leaven the situation a little, if only to find out how much allowance she would be granted. "I've had a few gentlemen make the observation that a woman with child can be quite. . . .enticing."

"Precious few," Mrs. Sloan grunted. She had been reviewing a list of names with check marks penciled next to some of them and appeared mildly surprised that Helena was still in the room, speaking. "Most men don't pay to bed a woman who reminds them of their wives. Whores exist so men can forget their wives." Mrs. Sloan seemed to be waiting for Helena to show some sign that she recognized the truth of her words. When Helena said nothing, continuing only to smile guilelessly, Mrs. Sloan said with careful emphasis but no trace of irritation. "Pregnant girls don't make money for me, Emily."

"So I couldn't arrange for a leave of absence?" Helena teased, looking up at Mrs. Sloan through her eyelashes and pushing out her lips in the tiniest pout. Perhaps a bit of mock flirtation might coax a chuckle out of the old girl, seeing the game run every night on their clients being run, if tongue-in-cheek, on her. Two veterans sharing a laugh at their profession, as it were.

Mrs. Sloan remained impassive, saying with an aridity that splintered the air in the room, "I've had girls come to me before wanting to keep their babies, and if it suited me, I let them go. It doesn't suit me to let you go. You're one of my best." She squinted at the list, and Helena received the impression that Mrs. Sloan was weighing her next words. The hesitancy, if that was what it was, rested oddly on her, making her appear, as she viewed her list, more like a pensive housewife trying to determine if she could stretch out her supply of flour than a successful madam. Helena felt a completely unfounded surge of hope, stronger than it should have been for the fate of a child she didn't even know she was carrying a few days ago.

But when Mrs. Sloan raised her eyes from the list, she smiled, and seeing the smile Helena would have taken more comfort in the woman's habitual expressionlessness. It was warmer by far. The smile was the rounded edge of a scimitar, and Helena felt it cleaving through her. "You don't know how many offers for you I've turned down. The moment you entered this house you were mine. That child of yours is mine, and I don't want it. I'll make an appointment for you with Dr. Barbour, and Kincaid will be right by your side." She took a ledger from one of the desk drawers and riffled through the pages until she came to the one she wanted. "You'll need a day or two to recover, so it'll have to wait until next week," she said matter of factly. The blade of her smile dropped but the colorless eyes took on the glare of ice. "I know you think you're clever. Don't be. I'll be watching you."

In her room, Helena crawled back under the covers of her bed. She needed to think, to plan, but the feeble stirrings for the child within her were just that, feeble, against Mrs. Sloan's relentless profit-seeking and her own apathy. Helena knew she could easily enough outwit Mrs. Sloan and Kincaid and whatever other henchmen might be lurking about. She could withdraw the money in her accounts and flee. Wasn't that why she had invested and reinvested what little she earned? She could save herself. If she wanted to.

Other than making her nightly appearances in the downstairs parlors Helena didn't leave her room. She had her meals brought up from the kitchen and when she wasn't servicing clients, she slept. It could have happened because there was something horribly wrong with the baby, an error so monstrous in its development that her body, in overcorrection, chose to expel it. The religious sort would claim that the fatal flaw had occurred at conception, but if that was so, how had Christina been such a beautiful child? But it could have just as easily been Mrs. Sloan ensuring that nothing was left to chance. There were chemicals that, if ingested, could cause miscarriages. Kincaid or any of the girls could have put drops in her tea or on her food.

All she knew for certain, however, was that she woke up in the middle of the night, days before her appointment with Dr. Barbour, in agony from the cramps razoring through her abdomen. She staggered out of bed, fumbling to light a lamp, and that was when she saw the blood, a pool of it soaking into the mattress, staining the bottom half of her nightgown. She made it to the door and lurched into the corridor, trying to cry out for help, although she had the helpless feeling that her mouth was opening and closing as soundlessly as a goldfish in a bowl. She heard voices raised in alarm, but they grew fainter, as if the girls were moving away from her and not toward her. Her last thought before she collapsed on the floor was that she should call them back. But only if she wanted to.

She didn't know where she was. Only that she hurt. There were voices near her this time and they weren't moving away. One, a woman's, was angry, the other, a man's, was apologetic. Sleepily, Helena thought the woman was angrier than the situation warranted, denouncing the man as a fool and claiming that she was going to lose a lot of money. His voice grew less apologetic and more defensive. He had done all he could, he was saying, but she had lost too much blood and infection was setting in. The woman had lost too much blood? Helena tried to puzzle out the inconsistency. A woman who had lost too much blood wouldn't be able to be so angry, wouldn't be able to slam a door with such vehemence. She would feel more like Helena was feeling now, weak and tired and muddle-headed. There, she almost had the answer, but she lost the thread of it in the descending darkness.

She woke again. She still hurt, but she felt hot. Cold too. Hot and cold at the same time, surely there was a logical explanation for that. The woman had returned. Helena could recognize her voice, and it didn't sound angry. It sounded resigned, the man's too, and Helena was glad because she didn't like fighting. Her parents had always told her that raising her voice in anger was unseemly.

"Get rid of her," the woman said.

"It won't be much longer," the man responded.

Helena didn't hear them after awhile, but she wasn't alone. Someone was bending over her, looking at her gently, lovingly, but she was shaking her beautiful head just a little, as if she was the tiniest bit disappointed. "You're a slow suicide," she said. Her hair was blond, like the sun, and tendrils of it caressed Helena's face, and Helena believed that if only she could get closer to it she might feel warm. She struggled to lift herself, but the woman was drawing away. Monika. "Not so slow anymore," Helena whispered. "I've hurried up the process." But Monika was beyond her outstretched fingers, and Helena would have wept had she the strength as Monika's form became smaller in the distance. She could follow her. If she wanted to. Oh, but she did, she did want to.

…..

Death was scratchy, like wool blankets, and it smelled like hair that hadn't been washed in too long. It was also noisy, with shoes scuffling along the floor and hushed voices and the tink of glass against metal. Helena had expected nothingness, not something as banal as a sickroom. That was what death reminded her of, a sickroom, with its stuffiness and pervasive half-medicinal, half-sour smells. If she had to bear that for an eternity, she would prefer to bear it alone. But the others weren't leaving. In fact, she felt a hand rest briefly on her forehead.

"Her fever's broken," the voice said calmly but with a note of relief. The hand lifted, only to return a moment later with a spoon pushing at Helena's lips. "Open up," the voice commanded but gently, and Helena, like a baby bird, opened her mouth, her eyes closed. She coughed on the medicine, and an arm wrapped around her back holding her up more firmly. Instinctively Helena curled into it, and the gentle voice said, "There, you'll be all right."

A voice from across the room, another woman, said, "I'll leave her in your capable hands, but I'll be back later to see how she's doing.

The nearer voice said, "She's going to be fine, Irene. We got to her in time."

"Barely," the other woman huffed. Heels sharply clacking the length of the floor, the sound of a door closing.

Helena struggled to open her eyes. In her wavering vision, she saw that the face close to hers was a warm brown with even softer brown eyes. "You saved me," she said, her voice cracked with disuse.

"Yes," the woman said simply.

"What's your name?" Helena licked her lips. They were dry and split. She could taste the dried blood on them.

"Leena."

"Well, Leena, don't expect me to thank you for it." At that, Leena smiled broadly, and as Helena drifted back to sleep, she wondered what the other woman found so funny.

As the days and weeks wore on, Helena grew frustrated with her own weakness. It took several days before she was able to sit up in bed unaided and to move from it to a cushioned chair positioned just a few steps away. She became exhausted brushing her own hair, and the first time she wobbled to the mirror over the bureau, she was shocked by how almost translucent she looked. Leena stayed with her throughout the day and well into the evening as she healed, and though Leena kept her well supplied with reading materials, Helena spent a good amount of their time talking. Leena never pried, never probed, and seemed perfectly content with the silence that would settle between them when Helena ran out of things to say, but Helena started to twitch when the room got quiet, and she would start a new story about. . . something. When the room was silent, time not only hung heavy it seemed to swing backward as well, taking Helena to that other room where the woman, Mrs. Sloan, it had to have been, said "Get rid of her" and where she had lost Monika again before she had even been able to touch her. Words, a frail defense, were all she had to keep herself from being swept into that horrid, dark room and left there.

Occasionally it was the other woman, Mrs. Frederic, who stayed with her. Though Leena's was the more restful personality, Helena felt more comfortable, in some respects, with the older woman. Her eyes were more watchful, measuring, and while she had yet to ask Helena anything other than how she was feeling and if there was some item or necessary she was in need of, Helena knew the woman wanted something from her. She was expert in recognizing and responding to others' wants, and she was content to wait until Mrs. Frederic was ready to divulge hers. One afternoon she slowly made her way to a window and looked down at the traffic in the street and the passersby on the sidewalks. Helena wasn't sure what day it was but thought it must not be Sunday; horses were drawing wagons stacked with barrels and crates, and the men were wearing work clothes, not leisure clothing or the suits they would wear to church. Helena had tried to ask Leena about where they had found her and, more importantly, how they had known about her, but Leena had responded only evasively, telling Helena that she should concentrate, instead, on getting better. She didn't like the fact that she had to creep across the floor or that she was grateful for the chair she could sink into next to the window, but she was feeling better, and that's why she wanted answers to her questions.

She would start out with an easy one first. "Where are we?"

In her chair by the bed, Mrs. Frederic hadn't stopped reading her book as Helena crossed to the window, a lifted eyebrow the only sign that she was watching Helena's progress. She put her book down in her lap, ready for an extended conversation. "We're in Harlem."

In her four years in New York, Helena still had only the haziest idea of the layout of the city, but she knew Harlem was home to some of its newest and poorest immigrants, and she looked at Mrs. Frederic curiously. "They ask fewer questions here," Mrs. Frederic said.

"Why would it matter? Are you hiding me?"

Mrs. Frederic cocked her head, regarding Helena intently. "No, but you must admit that two black women traveling with a very ill white woman might raise some unpleasant questions."

"Which doesn't tell me why you brought me here," Helena said.

"When I heard that the famous 'Snow White' lay near death in a charity ward of a hospital, I decided I had to see for myself." Mrs. Frederic's gaze had become enigmatic.

Helena turned her head away from Mrs. Frederic to look out the window again. She wasn't all the way better; it was taking her too long to think through this, to understand why a middle-aged black woman would know about the nickname applied to a prostitute who serviced wealthy white men. She also couldn't understand why Mrs. Frederic would have been interested in trying to save her. Certainly there were patients in the charity wards more deserving of the act of a Good Samaritan than Helena. Rubbing her forehead, Helena said, "I'm amazed that a respectable-appearing woman such as yourself would have any idea who Snow White was, let alone want to help her."

"Respectability has its limitations, and when it gets in the way of what I need to do, I don't worry about being respectable." Mrs. Frederic folded her hands on top of her book. "I know that you were one of Elizabeth Sloan's girls and that you went by the name of Emily Lake. I also know that you were much sought after. Our rescuing you from the charity ward, where, Miss Wells, you would have died, was not disinterested."

"I didn't think it was," Helena murmured, feeling a stab of disappointment at the admission. She slumped in the chair, suddenly tired, and uncertain that she could make it back to her bed without assistance.

As if divining how she was feeling, Mrs. Frederic added softly, "Yes, when I heard that you had been left for dead at the hospital's doors, I began to think how you might be able to help us if we were able to save you. But that said, Miss Wells, you are free to walk away from this place anytime you're able, and no one will try to stop you."

"I can't imagine how I would be of any use to you," Helena said with not a little bitterness.

Mrs. Frederic rose and walked over to where Helena remained slumped, like a chastised child, in her chair. Swiftly and with seemingly little effort, she lifted Helena from the chair and guided her back toward her bed, bearing most of Helena's weight as Helena slowly placed one trembling foot in front of another. "That can wait until you're well." She settled Helena against her pillows and drew the covers, almost maternally, over her legs.

"Can you at least tell me how you knew who I was?" Mrs. Frederic's face was beginning to blur and subdivide as Helena fought the sleep that was stealing over her.

"I'm afraid that will also have to wait."

In her interactions with others, Helena preferred to be the one providing the answers, not asking the questions. She was going to have address the balance of power in her relationship with Mrs. Frederic. But, as Mrs. Frederic would say, that would have to wait. In the meantime, there was one more question Helena needed to ask. "You knew about Snow White, do you know what happened to Sleeping Beauty?"

For a moment, there was something akin to pity in Mrs. Frederic's eyes, but then it was gone, and she was saying, "I'm sorry, but I don't recognize the name."

More weeks passed, and Helena could not only walk around her sickroom unaided, but she could also take short walks around the neighborhood if she had Leena at her side ready to offer an arm or suggest they take a rest. Spring was making an earnest effort, trees were tentatively putting forth buds and tulips in pots had raised their heads above the soil and were arching toward the sun. Like them, Helena turned her face up toward the sunlight, allowing herself to enjoy for a passing second or two the warmth beating down on her skin. But only for a second or two, since she might have to trade on that famed complexion of hers again. Leena was taking them toward a small, very small greenspace, not big enough to be called a park but big enough for a few benches closely set together, on which they would sit and watch the people strolling by.

Looking down at her figure, which, though still too thin, was beginning to regain some of its shapeliness, Helena said, "Almost as good as new."

"Almost," Leena agreed too cheerily.

"There's been something you've not wanted to tell me for days." Helena wrapped the shawl around her shoulders more tightly. While the sun was warm, the breeze still carried a tinge of winter. "I'm not dying after all, am I?" She cast a sideways glance at Leena, but Leena wasn't smiling. Helena knew what Leena didn't want to tell her, had somehow known even when she was half-out of her mind with fever under the dubious ministrations of Dr. Barbour. He had practically gutted her; she felt as if he had scraped her clean. "I won't be able to have any more children."

Leena stopped her head mid-shake and pulled Helena's hand through the crook of her arm. "No. . . I don't know." She drew Helena closer to her. "He was clumsy. He was trying to stop the bleeding, I think, but he wasn't careful, and it was the instruments he used that caused the infection, most likely. Maybe, in time. . . . "

Helena patted Leena's arm, as if she were the one in need of comfort. "He was a butcher, and I know the only reason I survived at all was because of you." She hesitated. "I wasn't a very good mother the first time around." She laughed dismissively, although even she heard the hollowness in it. "My forever-to-be-unborn children thank you."

"Helena," Leena said pleadingly.

They were entering the tiny park now, and Helena pointed to the bench where they usually sat. It was set under the branches of an oak tree and next to a winding gravel path that paralleled the boundaries of the park. "I'm ready to rest for a bit, aren't you?"

They sat on the bench, not speaking, watching children playing hooky from school chase each other in the grass, still dormant brown, and men, in worn and patched trousers and shirts, sharing cigarettes with one another as they surveyed the street, thick with drays and wagons, looking to earn some money by helping a driver to unload his goods or, if the opportunity presented itself, to take a box or crate when he wasn't looking. Leena was peeling an orange she had removed from a pocket of her skirt, and she handed Helena a section. As Helena chewed her orange, which was dry and fibrous, she absently swept her skirts aside, making room for the woman who had joined them.

"Are you enjoying your outing, Miss Wells?" Mrs. Frederic asked, settling against the back of the bench with a sigh.

"I'm alive, and I'm warm, and, for right now, I'm not concerned with how I'm going to support myself. The only blot," she paused, regarding Mrs. Frederic with a hauteur so regal that the other woman couldn't repress a smile. "The only blot," she repeated, turning to Leena, "is that rather unsatisfactory orange." Leena ignored the withering glare and tilted her head in the direction of the sun.

"I'm pleased to see that you're in good spirits," Mrs. Frederic said. Again there was silence, and Helena watched one of the men smoking cigarettes, the one wearing the shabbiest clothes among his companions, dart into the street and attempt to take a box from the back of an unattended wagon. He had no sooner lifted it than the driver, breaking off a conversation with a woman on the sidewalk, lashed out at the man's arm with a stout stick. Howling in pain, the man dropped the box and, holding his arm against his chest, began to run down the street, the driver in pursuit. The man's companions suddenly stirred and, pinching out their cigarettes, hurried to the back of the wagon and started passing boxes to one another. Too late, the driver spun around, yelling to bystanders to stop the thieves. A few people turned their heads but made no attempt to stop the men rushing away from the wagon. Even the policeman on patrol only gave the driver a casually apologetic roll of his shoulder.

As the commotion subsided, Mrs. Frederic remarked, "A clever plan."

"Only if one of your compatriots is willing to sacrifice himself," Helena responded. "The first fellow will be lucky if that blow didn't break his arm."

"Sometimes sacrifice is necessary for the greater good."

Helena looked steadily at Mrs. Frederic. "Should I be finding an object lesson in all this? I would be most impressed if that was a bit of street theater you orchestrated just for me."

"Unfortunately I can't take credit, but it was opportune." Mrs. Frederic appraised Helena. Her skin now had a pink undertone, a welcome change from the grayish pallor it had carried for months. Her black hair shone glossily in the sunlight, the color so rich and deep its sheen was almost blue. Her dress hung on her, but the dress that Mrs. Frederic had in mind would be artfully tailored to disguise how thin Helena still was. "I assume you've heard of Henry Tremaine."

Helena narrowed her eyes in surprise at the non sequitur but said only, "Who hasn't?"

"He's not only extremely rich," Mrs. Frederic said, "but he's also very, very powerful. It's said of him that he could have had a cabinet post in the current administration. But he prefers to exert his influence behind the scenes." As Helena continued to look at her, the narrowed eyes the only sign that she was listening with any interest, Mrs. Frederic added, "And he just happens to be in need of a new mistress."

"Did he tire of his old one?" Helena asked idly.

Mrs. Frederic's expression might have been best described as smug. "She was made an offer that she couldn't refuse. From chorus girl to lead actress in a traveling show that will be touring the West for the next several months, or so I hear." She looked meaningfully at Helena.

"If you're suggesting that I work my wiles on Mr. Tremaine, I believe he prefers the companionship of the, theoretically at least, unpaid variety, actresses in particular. The last time I was on stage was when I was nine, playing the heroine in one of my brother's original productions. I was kidnapped by pirates, married to the lord of a castle, and beheaded as Mary Queen of Scots, though not necessarily in that order."

"I think you underestimate yourself."

"Rarely," Helena said dryly. Her face grew serious. "I know, Mrs. Frederic, how much I'm in your debt, and I will do what I can to repay you. But Mr. Tremaine will not be looking for his next mistress among the cast-offs of Elizabeth Sloan. For the sake of argument, even were I to try to capture his interest, there would be too many of his associates who would recognize me. I have money. I can recompense you and Leena for a small portion of the care you've given me." Helena noticed that Leena's frown, which had first appeared at the mention of Henry Tremaine had deepened, but she looked past Helena's gently inquiring expression, sending a troubled glance in Mrs. Frederic's direction.

"You asked me once how I knew you were called Snow White and that you were dying in a hospital charity ward." Mrs. Frederic watched two children rolling a hoop run by them, their cries bright and sharp-edged like newly minted coins. "Have you noticed what the powerful and wealthy in this country have in common? They tend to share the same skin color, the same sex, the same origins. For those of us who are different, it's far more difficult to achieve they have achieved. If we arrive at the same place at all, we have to arrive there indirectly." She peered over the top of her spectacles at Helena. "Information is simply another form of currency and far easier for people like us to obtain. That is what I trade in, Miss Wells. A man like Henry Tremaine is an invaluable source of information, financial and political. If we were to have a friend who was also a. . . friend . . . of Mr. Tremaine, we could be positioned to do very well for ourselves and for others as well."

"And who are these others?"

"People who seek to improve their lot in life. We help each other when we can." Seeing the skepticism in Helena's eyes, Mrs. Frederic said, "Really, there's nothing sinister about this. We just want for those who don't have what the Henry Tremaines of the world have to have a chance, an opportunity to better their lives. As I said before, you can walk away at any time. You owe us nothing."

Helena could pack her few belongings, not that any of them truly belonged to her as they had all been provided by Mrs. Frederic or Leena, and book passage on the next train out of New York or ship leaving the harbor. She could return to her father's house, where they might take her in – the separation had been so profoundly bitter that she hadn't spoken with either her mother or father since Christina was an infant – as though she were some poor relation, a second cousin once removed, whose welfare it was their Christian duty to shoulder. She could sit silently through meals and assist at her mother's teas and watch Christina become a young lady from afar, nothing more to her than Aunt Helena, an eccentric old maid who had returned to the family fold as unexpectedly as she had left it, with nothing to show for her long absence but a cobbled-together package of evasions and half-truths. Or she could continue to drift, moving west to Chicago and the Pacific Coast or south to New Orleans, perhaps, or Mexico. Monika had once described the two of them as drowning, albeit, Helena reflected, in their own separate seas, and it was a preciously small buoy to cling to, the plan of this imperturbable middle-aged black woman to collect for the dispossessed the crumbs of the well-off, to sort through the detritus of their lives, their carelessly disclosed secrets and overheard conversations, in the hopes of gleaning something useful, something that some enterprising immigrant from a shtetl in Poland or a village in Sicily could transform into a stroke of good fortune or prosperity. And who was she to call it absurd? Was it any more ludicrous than the unquestioned belief of an 18-year-old girl that she could raise a child on her own, completely independent of any assistance? What was one more aging titan of industry laboring between her legs?

"Tell me," Helena said, her eyes, as they locked on Mrs. Frederic, cool and remote, "what do you know of Henry Tremaine's passions?"

After the visit to the park that day she became Charlotte Ramsey. It wouldn't be enough to prevent anyone who recognized her as Emily (or Snow White) from realizing that Emily and Charlotte were the same person, but even though it was a flimsily erected barrier against her former association with Mrs. Sloan, it left her a footing, although a precarious one, from which to leap into Henry Tremaine's life. Whether she could keep herself there once she landed rested entirely on her ability to charm him.

Fascinate him, Helena amended, as she wandered through the rented rooms that were home, only temporarily it was hoped, to Miss Ramsey, an Englishwoman of uncertain background and means but with aspirations for a much more secure future. The rooms were tasteful but suitably modest and the wardrobe provided for her was the same, with, perhaps, the exception of the dress Mrs. Frederic was insisting Helena wear when she met Mr. Tremaine. Other than its color, a deep blue that would emphasize the darkness of her hair and the porcelain whiteness of her skin, the dress had nothing to recommend it. The bustle was too. . . bustling, and the dress sported so many ribbons and furbelows that Helena feared she would look like a Christmas present once she put it on.

Leena followed her into the tiny sitting room. She nodded approvingly at the furniture and wallpaper but her eyes were anxious. Henry Tremaine had been the subject of several conversations between Helena and Mrs. Frederic since the park, and Leena had never completely lost her troubled expression. Running her fingers along the edge of the spindly writing desk, she said, looking away from Helena, "You don't have to do this, you know. You're not healed."

"Of course I am," Helena objected.

Leena approached her and poked her in the chest just below her collarbone. "Not in here."

"My lungs are in fine working order," Helena joked.

Leena closed her eyes in irritation. "Don't make light of this, Helena. Sometimes I think Irene and I are being no different than –"

"Elizabeth Sloan?" Helena supplied. At Leena's reluctant nod, Helena said, "You're nothing like her. I'm doing this because I want to, not because I have to." It wasn't an entirely true statement, Helena acknowledged, because she felt an obligation to the two of them that she didn't know how to repay otherwise, but it wasn't a lie either.

"I share Irene's goals," Leena said quietly, "but I don't always share her methods. If you don't like him, if he doesn't treat you well. . . ."

Helena cupped Leena's face, looking intently into the worried brown eyes. "It's not a fait accompli, darling. I may not be to his liking." Dropping her hand to Leena's, she pulled Leena with her onto the sofa. "But that would be only because I hadn't yet educated his tastes," she said with the mock boastfulness that never failed to elicit a wry smile from Leena. Seeing that the mouth remained solemnly compressed, Helena tried again. "Don't worry about the state of my soul, I bartered it away a long time ago." But Leena heard the caustic note Helena hadn't been quite able to soften, and the line of her mouth grew even thinner, her expression more pained. Unable to bear Leena's pity or sympathy, she was too afraid to find out which, Helena jumped up from the sofa and flung open the doors to her wardrobe. "Make sure that Mr. Waring arrives 15 minutes late," she said curtly.

Undoubtedly through a byzantine series of connections that Helena knew she wouldn't have the patience to follow, Mrs. Frederic knew of a casual business acquaintance of Henry Tremaine, who was more than happy, she averred, to have Helena accompany him as his guest to the theater and to an intimate supper afterward hosted by Mr. Tremaine. Theodore Waring was a plump man in his fifties with a white fringe of hair around his head that was matched by the white fringe of hair curving around his jaw like a handle. Although he bestowed several appreciative glances upon Helena, he was more concerned with the time ticking away on his watch, removing it from the pocket of his vest repeatedly and bemoaning how late they were. Helena ignored his complaints just as she had ignored his glances, spending her time during their carriage ride to the theater asking him about the others who would be attending the play with Mr. Tremaine. Mr. Waring, halted mid-complaint, scratched his head and admitted that he didn't know, except that there would be, he said, "a number of young ladies like yourself."

Of course there would be, Helena grimly smiled to herself. Tonight Mr. Tremaine was going to be surrounded by butterflies, and all he had to do was swing his net to capture one. As they entered his private box, the play already having begun, heads swiveled toward them, and one in particular was held at an imperious angle, Henry Tremaine's. As Mr. Waring apologized for how late they were, his hushed tone making his apologies all the more abject, that imperious head raked Helena with a cold, searching gaze to which she offered only a slight, equally cold smile. She smiled at the other women as well, but all she heard was a dry warning rattle as they straightened in their chairs, their eyes a flat black, alert and venomous in their appraisal of her. No defenseless butterflies here. One woman scooted her chair away from that of her escort and possessively caressed Mr. Tremaine's shoulder, head nearly resting against his neck as she initiated a private conversation with him. Helena endured the crawl of the play toward intermission, Mr. Waring sitting so closely behind her that she could smell his breath, which had her wishing violently that he had eaten a few peppermints before the show.

At intermission, Mr. Waring led her to a balcony overlooking the theater's main floor and hovered next to her until Helena shooed him away in pursuit of refreshments. She didn't observe the other theater-goers in solitude; Mr. Tremaine joined her at the balcony's railing. He was both handsomer and younger than he looked in the occasional newspaper photograph. While only an inch or two taller than Helena, he was broadly and powerfully built, with wiry russet hair just beginning to gray and heavy-lidded hazel eyes. Competitors and political opponents had mistaken the sleepy look his face could often assume for inattentiveness – until he bought their companies for far less than their asking prices and, in the case of those who defied his control of party politics, turned their adherents against them. He wasn't looking sleepy now, Helena noted. In fact, he was very awake and looking at her closely.

"Are you enjoying the play? It seemed to me that you were watching the audience with greater interest."

"Then it must not have been holding your attention either," Helena rejoined. "I was counting the empty seats. For a Joseph Reinecke comedy, it doesn't appear to be very well attended." One of Henry Tremaine's passions, Mrs. Frederic had informed her, was the theater. He fancied himself a producer, and Helena had spent more time than she would care to admit studying the current run of plays and identifying their backers. Mr. Tremaine had invested heavily in the play they were watching, and if tonight's attendance was any indication, he wasn't receiving a large return.

His eyelids minutely lifted in what might have been surprise, but he said confidently, "It's just opened. Word of mouth will spread."

Helena knew that other women would make the choice to agree with him and then turn the topic to something about which they knew nothing and beg him to educate them. But Helena was not that kind of woman, not anymore, not even for Mrs. Frederic. "I can't imagine that it would be positive. For a comedy, it has no pacing, no snap, and the audience isn't laughing."

The eyelids flickered and drooped, this time in evident irritation. "And you're a theater critic?"

"No, but neither are all the people who didn't attend the play this evening," Helena said, holding her ground.

"Joseph Reinecke has a golden pen. You'll excuse me if I trust that over the opinions of a few carpers," Mr. Tremaine said, leaving Helena no doubt as to which camp he placed her in.

"Had a golden pen," Helena said blandly. "I've been told that Mr. Reinecke farms out much of the writing of his plays to younger, less well known playwrights. The only bits that the people laughed at are the ones that Mr. Brownlee wrote." She smiled, moving away to join a huffing and puffing Mr. Waring. "I hear that Mr. Brownlee has been struggling to catch the interest of backers. If his contributions to this play are as promising as they seem to be, he might be a worthy investment."

She could feel the hazel eyes burning into her back, but she didn't falter, slipping her arm around Mr. Waring's cautiously extended elbow (he was trying to hold two beverages) and guiding him to a quiet corner. As she sipped her drink, Mr. Waring thrust two bushy, alarmed eyebrows at her. "My dear Miss Ramsey, I think you should try to be more accommodating toward him. The goal is to please him."

"Wives are accommodating, Mr. Waring. And accommodation pleases a man for only a time, then it bores him. I don't bore men, and I certainly don't intend to leave Mr. Tremaine with the impression that I would bore him."

"You shouldn't have to worry about that," Mr. Waring muttered.

At intermission's end, as they returned to the box, Mr. Tremaine disengaged himself from the woman who was clinging upon his arm and slowed to walk in stride with Helena. "Now I fear that the supper I've arranged won't meet your exacting standards," he said with a sardonic gravity.

"There's no need to fear, Mr. Tremaine. If the meal is equal to Mr. Reinecke's latest effort, I won't hesitate to tell you," Helena said archly, with a teasing smile. His expression torn between amusement and annoyance, he sighed, waiting for her to enter the box ahead of him.

The supper was held in the dining room of a private club. The small party from the theater had expanded to a sizeable gathering, women eagerly leaving the company of their escorts to circle ever closer to Mr. Tremaine. Helena imagined that there wasn't an actress or dancing girl from the theater district with a night off who wasn't in attendance. Their dresses were loud, their voices louder, and while they petted him and swooned admiringly whenever he tossed a word in their direction, the women showed no mercy toward each other, not hesitating to step in front of one another and, in one case, sharply elbowing a competitor out of the way. Helena maintained a position on the perimeter, conversing with the many men who were jockeying for her attention, acting as though she no longer knew whether Mr. Tremaine was still present. Yet she was aware of how frequently his eyes fell on her, and she noted with some disquiet that a few of the men jostling to draw nearer to her were clients of Mrs. Sloan.

During the meal, which was excellent Helena had to admit, she sat at a table some distance from Mr. Tremaine's but she never once tried to catch his eye; she made sure her face was always courteously turned toward whichever man was speaking to her. Mr. Waring had long since abandoned her for the blandishments of two actresses young enough to be his daughters, and when the man on her left suggested they take in the air on the terrace, she took his arm without a backward look at Mr. Tremaine's table. Her companion was earnest in his compliments, but Helena felt her eyes glazing over until she sensed that Mr. Tremaine had stepped onto the terrace. She leaned in closer to the man, at which he smiled with smug pleasure, and then dashed his hopes by saying in a whisper, "Hold still. I'm going to pretend that, for the first time this evening, you've just said something interesting to me."

A clearing of the throat and then Henry Tremaine said from very close by, "Reagan, would you give me a few minutes with Miss Ramsey."

Mr. Reagan, after a dour look at Helena, took his leave, and Mr. Tremaine stood next to Helena, resting his arms on the terrace's balustrade. There was a small lawn beyond the terrace and, beyond that, a fence, and beyond that the crowded streets of New York. But the fence and the lawn provided the illusion that the club was far away from the busy center of the city, and Helena thought she could hear the evening songs of birds between the sounds of traffic and the boisterous laughter from the room behind her.

"I always give credit where credit is due, and the supper was delicious, Mr. Tremaine," she said.

Mr. Tremaine ignored her compliment. "Sutter told me you used to work for Elizabeth Sloan. Is that true?" he said abruptly.

Helena's heart lurched, but her voice remained steady. "Yes." He hadn't yet looked at her, his face angled away from hers. "Does that make my presence offensive? Should I leave?" She asked it lightly, but he kept his face turned away. Wondering how she was going to explain this failure to Mrs. Frederic, Helena drew in a breath to thank him, as sincerely as she could, for the evening.

His hands suddenly flailing in the air, he said, as if to himself, "You seem. . . You're not what I expected. . . I don't usually. . . ."

"Consort with whores?" Helena brutally finished for him.

"Come, that's awfully offensive language," he sputtered.

"It's the truth. It's what I was. Although I suppose you think I could hardly aspire to the virtue of the assembly of chorus girls you have here this evening," she said acidly. As she swept away from him, he put a hand on her arm to stop her. She stared at his hand, then into his eyes. "Please remove your hand. You haven't bought me for the evening."

He lifted his hand as though the touch had burned him, and she stalked into the dining room, a queenly nod signaling to Mr. Waring her readiness to leave. With flustered excuses to the two actresses still hanging upon him, he rose and followed her to the entrance of the club, where he asked the doorman to hail them a hansom cab. He wisely remained silent on their way back to her rooms, but when he accompanied her to the entrance of the building, he said sadly, "I believe a softer approach would have worked better."

"You are free to try it on him, Mr. Waring," Helena said tiredly. She closed the door behind her and dragged her feet up the stairs to the second floor. Once in her rooms, she nearly ripped the dress from her in her eagerness to take it off. Foolish, foolish, to have antagonized him from the start. She had thought that challenging him would set her apart from the other women, but it had only marked her as a woman whom he needed to put in her place. She washed her face, wrapped herself in a robe, and settled on the sofa with a novel. She would only toss and turn if she went to bed, berating herself for such a colossal misadventure.

Someone was pounding at her door. She jerked awake, the novel sliding to the floor. She squinted at a clock whose hands she could just make out in the dim light, the flame in the lamp on the side table perilously low. Four o'clock. She tentatively approached the door; surely if it was Mrs. Frederic or Leena she would have announced herself. Opening the door a crack, she saw a square, stocky body with a shock of russet hair mussed as if a hand had been restlessly run through it. Mr. Tremaine's shirt was partially unbuttoned, and his eyes were red-rimmed, what little she could see of them beneath their lids.

"I don't take clients at this hour of the night," Helena said wryly, but drew her robe closer around her. She wasn't confident that he wouldn't try to force himself into the room.

He swayed, then steadied himself by grabbing at the lintel. "I'm not sure I like you at all," he said. "But I can't get you out of my head."

"Try to get some sleep, that might help," she said, preparing to close the door. He stuck his boot between the door and the jamb. "I can't stop you if you want to force your way in, but it will deal a severe blow to our relationship," Helena said with mock severity, but she clenched her fingers into fists to stop them from trembling.

He removed his foot and looked at her so beseechingly that she had the sudden wild impulse to laugh. Instead she buttoned his shirt and straightened his suit coat. "If you still feel this way after you've sobered up, you may send me flowers and invite me to tea or a ride in the park. You can pretend that I'm a lady, while I can pretend that you're a gentleman. Otherwise our association ends here, and I thank you for a most interesting evening."

She closed the door in his face and stood with her knees locked to prevent them from buckling under her. After a few minutes, she heard the creak of the hallway's floorboards under heavy, uneven footsteps, and she sucked in a long breath. She left the lamp on and curled up in a corner of the sofa and waited for sleep, long in coming, to overtake her. Waking up the next morning to more pounding on the door, she waited until there was silence in the hallway before she opened it. Dozens of roses in vases lined the faded runner, and a card affixed to the first of the vases invited her to tea the following afternoon.

 


	8. Chapter 8

After the tea, there was a ride in the park the next day, and following that, a night at the theater, only the two of them sharing his private box. More teas, more rides, private dinners. If Mr. Tremaine wasn't particularly inventive in his attentions, he was tireless, although Helena wasn't sure for the longest time whether he had grown to like her. That he wanted her she knew without a doubt; his touching of her was polite, even respectful, but Helena could tell by how his fingers sometimes wavered just an inch from her skin that he was resisting the desire to grasp her more firmly, to take her hand when it was in his as he was helping her from a carriage and pull her to him. At times she thought she should put an end to this mock courtship, let him take her in the carriage during one of their rides through Central Park or follow her up to her rooms after one of their late-night dinners. She had been with so many men in so many ways nothing he could have suggested as to the manner of their intimacy, its timing, or its location would have dismayed her, or prevented her from obliging him.

But that was the problem, he would be merely the latest in a line of men, and he would know only by her assurances, which, of course, he would assume that she would shyly and haltingly provide, on cue, that he was special. If she had wanted to set herself apart in order to attract his interest, he needed to set himself apart before he claimed her. As Helena watched him struggle between his desire and his pride, she remained honest (as much as she could, at any rate) and unsparing, feeling that he would trust nothing softer from her. Compliments he would interpret as a ploy, and though her frankness often irritated him, sometimes to the point that he would become remote and withdrawn for the remainder of their afternoon or evening together, she knew he also viewed it as a challenge. The risk she ran was that the irritation would win out over the challenge, and he would seek a woman who would more willingly play to his vanities.

This evening, however, he was in a genial mood. They had watched a play produced by one of his competitors, a drama set during some vaunted moment of American history (to Helena, America's short history seemed a series of dreary religious or political arguments punctuated by moments of bloody conflict) when a handful of men were called upon to defend a small fort or outpost from an advancing army (represented by a slightly larger number of men on stage). One of the defenders was distinguished from the others by his coonskin cap (as Mr. Tremaine later informed her it was called), although Helena wondered why anyone would want the tail of a dead mammal hanging from the back of his head. The play was overlong, and much of the audience left at intermission, which pleased Mr. Tremaine, who said, chuckling at his own humor, "They won't be remembering this Alamo," while Helena fought back a yawn behind her copy of the program.

As had become their habit after a performance, they shared a late dinner at one of Mr. Tremaine's favorite restaurants. He always reserved a private room, if not an entire floor of the restaurant, and Helena had become used to the absence of other diners near them. At first the otherwise homely sounds of silverware on plates and glasses being set on the table had sounded too loud and vaguely eerie, as if they were eating in a house that had been abandoned, and Helena would say something, usually provocative, to cover her disquiet. But the need to irk Mr. Tremaine into conversation had also subsided over time, and tonight he was the one to break the silence.

"You may be interested to know that I've invested in Mr. Brownlee's newest play. He sent me a script, and it's very promising." Mr. Tremaine rested his knife and fork on his plate and looked at Helena with his heavy-lidded eyes, daring her to remember their conversation at the theater the night they had met.

"Will I receive any credit if it's a huge success?" She asked, fingers stroking the stem of her wineglass. She had long since finished her dinner, but Mr. Tremaine was a slow and thorough chewer of food.

"Certainly, just as you'll receive the blame for recommending me to him, if it's not." He raised his hand in the air, and a waiter emerged from the depths of the room to remove his plate. "I might also have to ask you to share in any financial losses were the play to be an utter miss." He smiled, a glint appearing in his eyes.

"I'm afraid in that event you'd have to take the better part of it out in trade," Helena said, her smile equally as devilish.

He laughed, better able to appreciate the humor in the remark now, though his laughter ended on a rueful note. "The more I've gotten to know you, the harder I find it to believe that you ever were associated with Elizabeth Sloan."

Helena hesitated. She and Mrs. Frederic had gone back and forth over what to tell him when he would ask, as he inevitably would, about why she had worked for Mrs. Sloan. Mrs. Frederic had devised a number of stories, some complex and far from the truth, which she thought would appeal to the sympathy of a man of Mr. Tremaine's position. Helena preferred the truth. "I had given up a child, Mr. Tremaine, and having done that, I didn't much care what happened to me."

He frowned. "Surely, your husband –"

He could envision no alternative scenario. How could a man who routinely engaged in the kind of backroom dealings that saw politicians who were completely unfit appointed to the highest offices and others, honorable and competent, forced out of their positions be so blind to other social realities? "I had no husband," Helena said with more mildness than she was feeling. "I had my child out of wedlock."

He actually blushed and, flustered, brought his napkin to his lips. Taking refuge in a burst of outrage, he said, "What sort of man wouldn't marry a woman carrying his child?"

"An already married one," Helena said.

"Did he seduce you? Of course he had to have," Mr. Tremaine mumbled to himself, raising his hand again, and as the waiter once more magically appeared at the summons, ordered a brandy. Shooting a glance at Helena, Mr. Tremaine swiftly amended the order to two brandies.

"No more than I seduced him," Helena said, a steeliness to her tone. "I was young and curious, and he was good-looking and willing. Don't try to imagine me as some tender flower. After a few flirtatious exchanges, I crept into his bed when he was a guest at our home, and that, Mr. Tremaine, was how he seduced me." She looked down at the white linen tablecloth. She knew that if she pulled one of its folds out from the table that the material would feel closely woven and heavy, just as the silverware gleamed lustrously and the crystal of their glasses sparkled in the light. This was a meal in a setting few could afford, and here she was insisting on her cheapness. But if she let him indulge in sentimental notions that the ungentlemanly conduct of a man had set her on the path she was now rather than her own mistakes, he would try to refashion her in the image he wanted to hold of her, which would be disastrous for them both.

"God, the conversations we have," he said, pressing his fingers against his eyes. Letting them drop, he looked at her with tired disbelief, even his scowl looking fatigued. "You tell me to treat you like a lady and then you insist that you're a whore."

"Because I'm both, not one or the other. I come from better circumstances than you see me in now, but, yes, I did work for Elizabeth Sloane." Helena realized that it would be no effort to take her hand from her wine glass and touch the sleeve of his suit or the back of his hand with the tips of her fingers, but she couldn't make her fingers uncurl from the glass.

Making a back-and-forth sweeping motion between them, he said, "Whatever this is between us, you treat like a negotiating session over a contract. I've felt warmer feelings from attorneys in a business deal than I feel from you. The previous women with whom I've shared. . . a close friendship. . . permitted me to flatter them and to assure them," he coughed, reddening. "To assure them," he continued, "that they were very dear to me."

"And they, in turn, told you what a wonderful man you were," Helena said smoothly. "They never let you doubt for a minute that you were the most exciting, the best lover they ever had." She ignored the intensifying blush in his face and his embarrassed squirming in his seat. "Did you ever notice what heights of magnificence you achieved in their eyes when you bought them beautiful dresses and expensive jewelry? And when they thought they weren't being sufficiently . . . appreciated. . . did you notice how the compliments disappeared? Except for the fact that you didn't leave money on the nightstand next to the bed, you bought them, and you had no way of knowing when you left them that they wouldn't have another lover to keep them occupied. How is what I was so different?"

The waiter returned with their brandies, scurrying away as soon as Mr. Tremaine lifted his hand. Staring into his snifter, Mr. Tremaine said, "I'm old enough to be your father, and I know how I look. I'm built like a gorilla, and it's said I have the temper of one. I am willing to pay for an illusion, my dear Miss Ramsey, and the difference is that the young ladies of my acquaintance have been willing to humor me."

Helena studied her own drink. He was asking for the one thing that she wasn't willing to offer. Leena had as much as told her that she wasn't ready, and she had paid her no attention. She might recast the bleakness within her however she might like, as honesty or truth or unadorned reality, but it would ultimately drive him away. Not would, was driving him away. She glanced up to see his hazel eyes steadily regarding her, unaccountably reminding her of Leena's eyes as they had watched her these past few weeks, trying on dresses for her outings with him and changing her mind from one moment to the next about how she wanted to wear her hair. Leena hadn't mentioned again her concerns about Helena's and Mrs. Frederic's plans to ensnare him, but she had asked Helena at one point whether she liked Mr. Tremaine. And what had been her response? "It doesn't matter." But it did matter, not the least to Mr. Tremaine himself. The numbness she had felt for so long, continued to feel, left her unable to sense when speaking the truth was an excuse for dismissing another's feelings.

"I'm not trying to flatter you when I say that I've appreciated all the courtesies that you've shown me, not the least of which has been listening to my opinions, even if you haven't agreed with them. I admire that you've taken what even you have admitted are humble beginnings and made yourself into a man whom presidents ask for advice. How can I not be impressed by your unflagging pursuit of me when I've done little but put obstacles in your way?" The last prompted a tiny, rueful smile from him. "When I look at you, I don't see a gorilla. I see the evidence of years of hard labor, which few of your peers could likely equal."

"Then you're not completely indifferent to me?" He asked, the teasing inherent in the remark unable to hide the note of hopefulness.

"No, not completely," she said, knowing that he would hear her words as a playful volley back to him and miss their naked honesty. She swirled the brandy in her glass before taking a sip. "If you asked me how many men I've been with, I couldn't tell you. I can't remember any of them. Hair color, a dimpled chin, a name here and there, but not a whole person. There's no one with whom I would compare you, Mr. Tremaine, to your detriment. There's no man, most especially not my child's father, whom I hold close to my heart." She took another sip and let it linger in her mouth before she swallowed it. It was very good, very expensive. She was sure she could hear Mrs. Frederic urging her from wherever in the city she was spinning her webs not to say what was in her mind, but this was a business transaction – he had been right about that – and she needed to know if he was going to sign. "Can you make your peace with it?"

"I don't know," he said, "but I'm willing to try." He leaned across the table and took her hand in his, lightly rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. "You don't know how many times I've ended an evening with you promising myself that it was the last one, and the next morning I've woken up planning when I would see you next." He hesitated, a blush suffusing his cheeks and neck. "Usually I wouldn't be so coarse, but I want you to know deeply you've made an impression on me. There have been no. . . other women. . . . since I've met you."

Helena said dryly, "No wonder you've been so irascible lately."

He blinked, becoming even redder and his hand unconsciously tightened its hold on hers. His throat issued a strange, gargling sound before he erupted in laughter. "Dear God, you'll be the death of me."

"Only if you ask me to exert my powers to the full," Helena responded with a sly smile.

He released her hand and wiped his mouth and eyes with his napkin. He drank down the rest of his brandy and threw his napkin on the table. The candles on their table were beginning to gutter out and in their flickering, uncertain light, his eyes looked golden; he was a Midas, who, with one touch, would simply turn her into another of his possessions. But she was used to that. "I'm tired of waiting," he said simply.

He took her not to a hotel or a suite of rooms he had rented in some nondescript building but a mansion. In the dim light of the streetlamps, it loomed large and indistinct, the gray stone towering like a storm cloud, as if Henry Tremaine hadn't so much announced his arrival among the wealthy and influential as he had blown in like a gale. The interior suggested the same sense of force about to be unleashed, the expanse of marble and white stone work of the staircases were cold but in their very lavishness they hinted at a fury to be recognized, admired. With the immediate responsiveness to his least gesture that the restaurant's wait staff had shown, a servant appeared to take Mr. Tremaine's hat, walking stick, and gloves, and the shawl Helena had worn around her shoulders was removed with her barely noticing it. Then as suddenly as they had appeared, the servants were gone, and Mr. Tremaine was drawing her toward one of the staircases that curved along opposing walls, and she felt, despite their almost ceremonial pace and the cautious hovering of his hand at her back, that she was being brought into the eye of the storm, that the energy and hunger that had fueled the construction of this monument to a man's pride were building at the periphery. She took a breath to settle herself and, with a quick, almost unconscious ducking of her head, as if the winds were already whipping at her hair, she let him lead her up the stairs.

She found a robe of his to wear the next morning, her own clothing nowhere to be found, and, wrapping it around herself with material to spare, she descended in search of him or breakfast, smelling the scents embedded in the robe, which she had already begun to associate with him, the astringent smell of his shaving soap – he was, most unusually, a clean-shaven man – the sweet-sharp smell of mint, and underlying those, a smoky, peaty scent reminiscent of freshly turned earth or the tang of a dark ale. Not unpleasant and suggestive of the core of this man, a poor farmer's son. But a man, Helena reminded herself, who built a fortune before he was thirty and who, not yet fifty, was among the handful of men considered to be running the government of the United States – and a man more than capable of turning her out on her ear this morning, should he so please.

But he wasn't so disposed this morning. She had found him, not in the formal dining room as she had half-expected, but in the sunroom at a table in front of windows overlooking a small garden, big enough for a few flower beds and a couple of forlorn-looking trees. Despite the mansion's size, Helena had found its layout familiar, not unlike that of her family's estate outside London, though far grander, and she suspected that many of these baronial edifices, at their heart, simply aped the English country homes of their owners' imagination. She slipped into the other chair, blinking at the sunlight streaming across the table, which held, aside from a stack of newspapers he appeared to be methodically going through, a delicate china cup and an only slightly sturdier-looking pot.

Mr. Tremaine was dressed to go out, sporting all the layers – frock coat, vest, freshly ironed shirt, and necktie – that a gentleman of business would wear, and Helena thought he must be terribly hot, but he gave no sign of it, and though she had the strong impression that he had been waiting for her to make her way down from his bedroom, he didn't seem the least impatient. What he seemed most like, his square, broad chest seeming too big for his chair, his hair glinting gold in the sun, the lids drooping so that they nearly covered his eyes, was a lion at somnolent ease in his domain.

"Good morning," she said, caught off guard by her own shyness. More abruptly, her voice sounding loud to herself in the quiet room, she said, "I had to borrow a robe. I couldn't find my clothes."

"Because I had them moved to your new rooms. I've arranged to have your clothes and belongings from your lodgings brought here as well," he said, turning a page of the newspaper and pinching the crease.

"Here?" Helena echoed above the rustle of paper.

"Yes. Do you object?" He lowered the paper, the rims of his irises barely visible beneath those eyelids.

"No. . . I. . . I don't know," she stammered. She had expected, at most, confirmation only that he wanted to see her again before being handed into a carriage for the trip home. She had understood when he said he was willing to try that he meant it for a probationary period, their relationship largely unchanged except for the fact that some portion of their time together would be spent in bed. While she was confident that she had pleased him the night before, it hadn't been of a transformative quality, certainly not for a man of his experience. It had been awkward on occasion, but, she had to admit, not unpleasant. He had been surprisingly playful, teasing her and making self-deprecating remarks about his clumsiness. She had expected to be, metaphorically if not literally, vanquished beneath that stocky body, taken and retaken as mercilessly as his forefathers, the archetypes of whom she had seen in that abysmal play earlier in the evening, had claimed this country. He had been hungry and urgent and impatient at times too, but he had been disarming as well, nearly rolling off the bed in laughter when he couldn't disentangle his foot from the sheet and burying his face in her hair with contented little grunts. To cover her confusion, she said glibly, "I'm surprised you've already decided that you can't live without me."

His eyelids fluttered up at the remark, and Helena was grateful to be able to take refuge in the cup of tea that had suddenly and noiselessly been set in front of her by an older man, as formally dressed as his employer. "I haven't decided that at all. But it's more convenient for me to have you here than to travel back and forth across town to visit you." He gestured toward the cup. "I trust you'll find the Earl Grey to your satisfaction."

"I'll make sure then not to completely unpack my bags."

He folded the newspaper and put it down. "These are my terms for however long this arrangement lasts. No promises, no expectations other than the most basic, payment for services rendered. You are free to leave at any time as I am equally free to ask you to leave. I've already set up an account in your name at my bank, and money will be deposited into it on a weekly basis. So, I ask again, do you object to this arrangement?"

"I see how this benefits me, but the advantages to you escape me. You don't want assurances of my fidelity or receipts showing how I've spent your money?" She asked.

He shook his head. "You don't make promises, Charlotte, and I don't count pennies." He rose from the table and approached her, putting a finger underneath her chin and tipping it so that she looked up at him. His features had the same square, rough-hewn quality as his frame, but whereas before she had viewed the assertive nose with its wide, bent bridge (broken more than once, she guessed) and pugnacious jaw as the outer signs of an inner determination to take what he wanted when and how he wanted it, she could also see that there was a simplicity, an honesty even, in their bluntness. "You may think I'm getting little in return, but you're in my house, wearing my robe, and that's enough for me. For now." There was no triumphant light in his eyes, but they lingered on her.

"Aren't I going to stumble into your wife living here?" Helena asked, glancing away from the possessiveness of his gaze.

"She lives at our estate on the Hudson, when she's in New York." He hesitated, a momentary vulnerability in his face catching her attention. "I have more doubts about you, about what we've entered into than I've had about any of my previous liaisons, but I've never brought any woman here before, not even for a night." The vulnerability disappeared, replaced by a knowing, amused twist of his lips. "Perhaps I just wanted a 'first' for the two of us."

"I trust that you're a man who doesn't value the pursuit over the capture. Because now that you've had me, I don't know what other surprises I still have for you." Helena said with mock humility.

He laughed and cocked his head at her in manner that suggested he knew something she didn't. It irritated her, but she was silent, letting him enjoy his private joke. "I'm a businessman. Having something is always better than chasing after it. Besides, I don't have you, not yet. You're long odds, Charlotte, but I've never been afraid of those."

Over the weeks and, then, months that followed, Helena adjusted to the rhythm of days soon distinguished as the days that Henry was home and the days that he wasn't, the latter far outnumbering the former. He had informed her early on that he was spending much of his time in Washington, but there were times when he was in the city and, for reasons of his own, didn't stay with her in the mansion. Occasionally she would be reading the society section of the newspapers and see a reference to Mr. and Mrs. Henry Tremaine having attended a gala event or sponsored a charity ball. At other times, she would overhear him with certain of his cronies, closeted behind the doors of the billiards room, laughing about the excesses of the night before, which tended to include, or so the men loudly recounted to one another, a chorus girl perched on each knee.

But Helena felt the same whether the day was one when Henry was home or when he wasn't. She couldn't say that she was relieved when he was gone or happy when he returned. She always made sure that she showed her appreciation of his little kindnesses and, because the "payment for services rendered" was ultimately based on how well she pleased him in bed, she quickly learned what excited him most, inventing, where possible, variations on the themes. Sometimes, however, she sensed that though always gratified (or nearly always, she wasn't perfect), he was frustrated, and he would roll away from her without saying a word, the set of his shoulders so rigid that she knew better than to try to caress the tension from him. If he was in her bedroom, as was most often the case, he would leave, not quite slamming the door behind him. If she was in his bedroom, she would leave before his displeasure became a third body in the bed.

She would note his discontent to Leena, who was a frequent visitor on the days Henry wasn't home and an occasional visitor even on the days when he was home. Although Helena had worried about how she would explain Leena's presence to him, finally deciding upon the story that Leena had been her maid in better times past, Henry displayed little interest, shrugging his shoulders and commenting only that he didn't know that they had lacked for maids. Helena and Leena would retreat to her rooms, and in the sitting room off the bedroom, which, with its massive fireplace and overabundance of furniture – chaise lounges, loveseats, and ornate chairs – was as intimate as an exhibit in a museum, they would sit huddled together over a small desk in a corner of the room, and Leena would prompt Helena to tell her who had visited Henry at home, whom he had said he was visiting, what, if anything, he said about his businesses or his sojourns in Washington. It was during these conversations that Helena would mention, if she couldn't provide any new information about his affairs, his "sulks," as she called them.

"And you don't understand why he's 'sulking'?" Leena prodded.

"Because sometimes he finds me too practiced. He's told me he's forgotten all about my time with Mrs. Sloan, but he hasn't, not really." She gestured toward her dress, a lovely confection of rose-colored taffeta, and then toward the room. "I've grown used to this. . . again." Smiling lopsidedly, she said, "I would hate to have to leave it, but if he wants a woman to lay like a sack of potatoes while he's on top of her or to act amazed as if she doesn't know that she's brought him to completion, he'll need to find someone else. Or go back to his wife."

"I know you know he doesn't want a 'sack of potatoes,' as you describe it. Does he give you pleasure?" Leena didn't look the least uncomfortable discussing the intimacies between Helena and Mr. Tremaine, although Helena noticed that she was having a harder time meeting Leena's eyes. "He doesn't entirely lack skills, but this is what I do to keep myself afloat, Leena, I don't give much shrift to my pleasure." Her eyes flying toward the opposite wall, Helena thought she might ask Henry if she could redo the wallpaper. "I never did."

She thought she had said it sufficiently under her breath, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Leena pinch her nose between her fingers. "If you still think of it as work with Mr. Tremaine, that may be what he's reacting to. But you also know that, fundamentally, we're talking about how you feel, not what you do. Whether you believe it or not, you are capable of feeling passionately. Very passionately."

"And you know this how?"

Leena's brows knitted together briefly as though she were revolving in her mind what she was about to say next. Shrugging, as if willing to endure Helena's scorn, she said, "I sense things. I can tell what people are feeling, even if they can't explain it to themselves. I know what they're capable of feeling, even if they think those feelings are dead and buried or never existed in the first place." As Helena reluctantly met her gaze, Leena said, "I know that all you've felt is hollowness since you gave Christina up, and that you fear it's all you ever will feel. But it's not. Someday, Helena, you're going to fall very hard for someone, and you'll understand all that you're impatient with now."

"You can see into the future too?" Helena jeered, although it seemed to strike harmlessly against Leena's calm certainty.

"Not in the way you think. But I know that you'll never love Mr. Tremaine, not because he's not worthy of being loved but because you're meant to love someone else. Don't mistake him or where you are now for where you're meant to be."

"One of my nannies used to say there's a lid for every pot. If that's all that my future holds for me, I think I'll be more comfortable here with Mr. Tremaine." Helena got up and busied herself with the tea service on a nearby table. Leena shook her head at the offer of tea. Helena wished for something stiffer to pour into her cup.

"Helena, there will come a time when Irene won't need you to maintain a relationship with Mr. Tremaine. She may not recognize it yet, nor you, but I do." As Helena eyed her warily over her cup, Leena sighed. "Some people have a talent for working with facts, Irene, for example. I recognize their value, but I have no affinity for them. My talent, such as it is, is recognizing where –." She stopped, the right word eluding her. "Where imbalances exist," she finished softly.

"And I'm out of balance?" Helena said wryly. "I could have told you that, darling."

A rare flash of annoyance crossed Leena's face. "Not just people, Helena. Imbalances in situations, in places. It's hard to explain, especially to people who like facts, but there are energies, harmonies, if you will, at work as well, and when those are disturbed. . . . " Her voice trailed off as Helena didn't try to hide her amusement. "Let me explain what I sense in terms that you'll accept. This man and this situation, they're not right for you. The longer you stay, the harder it will be for you to leave. You see that even now, don't you? But you will need to leave."

"Because I'll be needed elsewhere, where something's horribly out of balance?" Helena said, her sarcasm thick.

"Yes." Again, Leena's calm certainty was a perfect shield. "And I need you to promise to me now, Helena, that when that time comes you will help us again."

"Why now? You know how much I owe you and Mrs. Frederic. I can't imagine my saying no."

"The problem is, Helena, I know when we ask you then, it will be the absolute last thing you'll want to do. That's why I'm asking for your promise now." For the first time, Leena's confidence betrayed a crack, and Helena could see the anxiety in her eyes.

"Perhaps that'll be because I've already met my lid," she responded flippantly. Leena continued to look somberly at her. "Yes, all right, I promise. When you next ask me to help, I will." At the relief that entered Leena's expression, Helena growled, "Henry was wise enough not to ask me to promise anything."

"Unlike Mr. Tremaine, who can't afford to trust anyone, I know I can trust you," Leena said as she rounded the table and gave Helena a sisterly kiss on the cheek. "I need to return to Irene." She looked around the room, her eyes lighting indifferently on the expensive furniture and the large painted landscape hanging above the fireplace. "Yes, you will miss this, but there will be compensations."

"Such as my intended?" Like a sullen adolescent, Helena flounced onto a sofa. "How will I even recognize him?"

"You needn't worry about that," Leena said, her confidence returning full force. "I'll know your lid when I see it."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a long time since I've updated this, but the updates will come more quickly. I have Journey's End to post here as well as the beginning of a new fic that's in the same universe and has Bering & Wells, although two O.C.s will take center stage, one of whom you meet in this fic.
> 
> This is a slightly rewritten version of the chapter on FanFiction.

Although Helena was Mr. Tremaine's mistress, she wasn't mistress of his mansion, nor did she care to be. She had no liking for or any skill in running a household, and Henry's staff didn't need any managing. His manservant James capably directed matters, and if Helena had any issues with the servants (almost never) or complaints about the mansion itself (only rarely, and they usually concerned the coldness of certain rooms), she would bring them to James first, not Mr. Tremaine. Were she Henry's wife, Helena would be spending much of her time maintaining the social relationships that both facilitated and disguised the business dealings that supported their way of life. But she wasn't his wife, and besides which, she had no social relationships to maintain. So Helena devoted part of her day to studying the financial news in the newspapers and investing some of the obscene amounts of money deposited in her account. After all, there were only so many new clothes and books she cared to buy, something she was disappointed to discover about herself.

But speculating and investing could take up only so much of her time. As could reading. She tried to enroll in classes at the city's colleges. She wanted to take courses in mathematics and the sciences, but she could provide no record that she had attended school, and her protestations that her tutors had been from Oxford and Cambridge made no impression. Even if she had been able to produce the record the professors and their departments were looking for, the people with whom she met were invariably men and already predisposed to view her aspirations skeptically. She offered to donate money to the schools' foundations and had she been willing to take courses considered more suitable for women, literature or languages, she might have encountered more success. She volunteered to take any class or complete any test to prove her competence in the subject, but she received the same polite smiles of disinterest. The one class she did manage to enroll in was an art class, deliberately conceived and offered as an entertainment for young ladies. It was a general survey of artistic styles and subjects, and Helena languished through the still lifes, but she obediently sketched the bowls of apples and vases of flowers placed at the front of the classroom.

The students were mainly girls seeking to add an accomplishment to the resumes each carried in her mind of the qualities and skills most likely to attract a husband. But there were young wives and a sprinkling of matrons, too. Helena chatted with the women who had set up their easels on either side of her, but her attention was drawn to the woman in the row ahead of her. She was fragile-looking with an abundance of strawberry-blond hair and she blushed every time someone spoke to her. With a patient effort that she was surprised she could summon, Helena engaged the woman in conversation, watching as her gentle questions left the other woman tongue-tied and stammering. Her name was Louisa, and her husband had suggested, no, ordered her, Louisa had confided with a nervous laugh, to take the class to rid her of her "infernal" shyness. She acknowledged that she had no talent when it came to drawing – she waved her hand in front of her pad of paper, on which something that more closely resembled a gravy boat than a bowl held a few red blobs, as if she were about to rub or strike it out – but she enjoyed the company of the other ladies, especially Helena's. As Louisa said this, she blushed pinkly, and as the blush tinted the delicate shell of her ear, her head bent in admiration of Helena's competent rendering of the apples, Helena felt something within her quicken at the sight of that ear and the wisps of red-gold hair that framed it. Placing her hand on Louisa's shoulder, she leaned in much closer than necessary to show her how she had drawn apples that looked like apples.

She hadn't expected to feel that quiver again, like a bowstring released after being held taut, which began in her abdomen and quickly vibrated through the rest of her. She hadn't felt it since her time with Monika, and before Monika, she couldn't remember when she had felt it. Perhaps the first time she had crawled into Richard's bed, but only the first time. Intimacy having become only another transaction, the anticipatory thrill that the person beside you could harbor all the mystery and delight in the world was replaced by the grim certainty that he was simply the next in line. Confused, she wasn't sure whether to enjoy the shivers running down her back or pretend they didn't exist – there was no room in her life for another lover, not the life she was leading now. And most definitely not a woman. Especially not this demure little fawn.

Yet as the survey meandered its way through religious paintings, historical paintings, landscape paintings, and as Louisa's renditions grew ever more distant from the models they were copying and her blushes became more pronounced, Helena's shivers and tremors grew more violent. If she were to believe Leena, this young woman was no more her intended, her future beloved than Henry was, and to toy with her not only threatened the happiness of Louisa’s marriage (although Helena had no reason to believe it was particularly happy in the first place) but also jeopardized her own arrangement. But it was intoxicating, this feeling something after so long, even if it was only temporary, transient. Once Helena met Louisa's husband, Edward, and heard his constant belittling of his wife and then saw him press one of their maids against the wall in a dark hallway, his hand, like a fat white grub, on her bodice, she no longer felt any concern for the state of their marriage. As for her arrangement with Henry, it was precisely that, an arrangement, not even having the paper solidity of a contractual obligation.

She expected ignorance and, given the object of her attempt at seduction, aversion as well. Unless Louisa had been brought up in circumstances far less conventional than her appearance and demeanor suggested or taken the initiative to educate herself, also unlikely considering her shyness, she wouldn't know and would have even less reason to imagine that a physical relationship between two women could encompass more than the hooking of arms during an afternoon stroll or an affectionate kiss. Of ignorance there was plenty. Edward had schooled his wife in the ways he wished to be pleased, which, as Louisa timidly confessed them to Helena, seemed to her limited in both number and variety. But of aversion, when, after endless visits and outings, the latter including a surfeit of volunteering at Louisa's pet charities, Helena made her intentions unmistakable, assisted by the fact that both of them were down to their chemises and drawers on a chaise lounge in Louisa's sitting room, there was none. As Helena finally learned how far Louisa's blushes could travel, Louisa stroked Helena’s hip and said in a soft voice very close to her ear, "I knew from the first day in art class that you were the talented one."

For awhile the outings stopped, Helena and Louisa literally locking themselves away in Louisa's bedroom and then, as the weather improved and their interest in exploring other venues grew (in harmony with the burgeoning spring they became more desirous and less cautious about where and when they expressed it), they took carriage rides out to the country. Ostensibly they went to picnic and paint, but more often than not they would lay on a blanket discreetly hidden by a copse of trees or a rise in the ground, and Helena would slowly work her way through layers of skirts and petticoats, ignoring Louisa's increasingly ragged pleas to hurry and removing each item with the same patient attention she would devote to unwrapping a present, wanting to prolong the moment before the gift would be before her and she would fall upon it with greedy, questing hands.

But one afternoon Louisa delayed their ride out to the country, telling a pouting Helena that she needed to participate in a volunteer effort in the city's Lower East Side. Sidling up to Helena and linking her arms around Helena's waist once the maid had left the room, Louisa suggestively whispered, "You can tell me in the carriage ride down to the East Side all that you're going to do to me in the carriage ride out to Westchester."

The volunteering involved them and several other women going from door to door among the tenements dispensing donated foodstuffs and clothing. The gifts came with a price, Helena soon realized, a lecture on temperance and keeping spirits out of the home. Louisa delivered it prettily and with no apparent irony, although Helena had seen Edward work through an entire bottle of wine by himself. Her audience listed quietly enough, more out of incomprehension than anything else; few could speak more than a few sentences in English. But Louisa pressed on, Helena thinking an extra pair of shoes or sack of flour would be of more use. Descending to the street, they were caught in a crush of people milling around the tenements, children, mothers, old men, exclaiming in dozens of different languages. Some were hawking second-hand goods or dubious-appearing delicacies on the sidewalk, and farther on, where the streets became progressively darker and narrower, women prowling in front of alleyways and on corners would approach the men, young and old irrespectively, their hands out and jerking their heads toward the shadows where they could finish their business. Helena shuddered. Though she had little reason to be thankful for how she had left Mrs. Sloan's employ, she knew that if she hadn't, she would have ended up here or someplace like it, selling herself for a few coins.

Louisa followed the path her eyes had taken, almost absently noting, "There was one woman, a pathetic creature really, whom we tried to help. She was eaten up with consumption and she had been mistreated, you could tell, but she must have been a great beauty once." She nudged Helena back the way they had come, pulling Helena closer to her. "Not as beautiful as you, of course." She stopped, her head still turned toward those darker recesses of the neighborhood. Her voice rose in surprise. "Oh my goodness, that's her."

Helena instinctively turned as well, sighting along Louisa's pointing finger. A woman limped down the sidewalk. She was dressed in little more than rags, and the men whom she followed quickened their pace or rounded on her with shouts and, in one or two instances, a raised fist. She would cringe away, waiting until they had been swallowed by the constantly moving mass before shuffling toward a new group of passers-by. Matted blond hair screened her face from Helena's and Louisa's view, until sensing their interest, she pushed her hair away and sent a bleary look in their direction. All of her features looked as if they had been pushed to one side, nose, lips, cheeks, eyebrows, as though a massive hand had tried to sweep them off her face. But the worst was her eyes, one looked permanently shut, the socket and cheekbone beneath it sunken in. The other eye, now wide and staring at Helena, was blue, and Helena remembered looking up, sometimes down, into those eyes and marveling at the clarity of their color.

She thought she was still staring back at Monika, but she felt her legs pumping and then she was crashing, colliding into bodies. Hands pushed back at her and angry protests filled her ears. She heard a thin cry of "Charlotte! Charlotte!" above the crowd, but her legs didn't stop; she was crossing the street, darting between wagons, and Monika was lurching as quickly as she could in the opposite direction. Gulping for air, Helena tried to call her name, but Monika continued weaving around people, her right leg hitching awkwardly behind her. She disappeared into an alleyway, but Helena didn't hesitate, plunging into the gloom. Monika was sagging against a wall, her chest laboring; she was coughing, wet, wracking coughs.

"Monika?" Helena tentatively approached her.

Another spate of coughing, and Monika slipped to the ground. Helena extended her hand, intending to help her up, but Monika roughly knocked it away. "Fuck off," she said, the harshness undercut by the fact the words came out as a wheeze. She slowly pulled herself up, fingers scrabbling for a purchase on the bricks, but every time Helena edged in to assist her, she would try to kick Helena away.

"Monika," Helena whispered.

"I told you to go the fuck away." She was standing, although the achievement was precarious, Monika teetering on her feet. Helena approached her once more, and Monika weakly pushed at her shoulders. Helena ignored her, holding her tightly. Monika felt so thin, a collection of bones, and Helena's heart pounded with fear. She needed to get Monika out of here. . . . Henry's mansion, somewhere, and then Leena. Yes, she would get Leena and – Monika's foot struck her ankle hard, and her hands, a cluster of twisting bones with only a tarpaulin of flesh to cover them, were punching at her chest. Helena staggered back, and Monika was cackling, or trying to, between long, strangling breaths. "No touching for free. You want me you have to pay." And with that she flipped up her skirt, and even in the gloom, Helena could see how the flesh had wasted from her, the bony curve of her hips as prominent as a scimitar, her pelvis shrunken with a sparse tangle of hair between her thighs.

"Monika, don't, please don't." Helena looked away.

"If you can't pay, fuck off." Monika dropped her skirt and began to limp down the alleyway. As Helena helplessly started to follow her again, Monika slowed. "Go," she said, her voice trembling. "Go." When Helena didn't move, Monika started screaming, "Go, goddammit, go." Her scream broke mid-ascent, and she shook with the violence of her coughing.

A figure appeared at the far end of the alleyway. "What the fuck's going on here?" He didn't sound friendly, and he looked very large. Monika gave him a wide berth, and he didn't spare her a glance as he advanced toward Helena. Helena reluctantly took a few steps backward, but Monika didn't turn her head to look behind her. Sensing that her margin of safety was fast eroding, Helena, with a last, anguished glance at Monika, retreated from the alleyway and blindly threw herself among the throng, not caring about the bodies surging against hers.

She felt a tug on her arm; a boy was trying to make off with her reticule. She caught him by his sleeve and dragged him across the sidewalk, pinning him to a wall. The endless stream of people, the noise of a hundred voices, Monika – Helena was trying to gather her flying thoughts, but nothing cohered. Her eyes met the frightened ones of the boy; they were bright blue, like Monika's, and Helena, for a moment, was back in the alleyway, staring into her ravaged face. The boy, feeling Helena's grasp relax, began to wriggle beneath it, until Helena, with more force than she had intended, blocked him back against the wall. Here was something to focus on. The eyes, albeit still darting for an escape route, at least showed a spark of intelligence and his expression had nothing of the stupidity passing for slyness she had seen in other street urchins. "Stop struggling and I'll make it worth your while," she said quietly.

The boy searched her face and seeing something in it that assured him she was speaking the truth, he ceased wriggling. Helena, however, kept a firm grip on his arm as she led him toward where she had left Louisa. Louisa. She caught a glimpse of strawberry-blond hair through a gap in the crowd, and as she neared Louisa, who was pacing anxiously in front of a tenement's grimy entrance, she thought how out of place they looked here, in their fine dresses, their altruism as well scrubbed as their faces, and she saw herself with the same mixture of distrust, envy, and hopelessness with which the victims of their charity must regard them. They were no less a predator than the factory owners in their mansions, the only difference being the hunger that brought them here to feed. They didn't need this teeming mass of humanity to fill their mills and factories; they needed these hungry, desperate people to accept their cast-offs, their leftover bounty, to be the mirror in which they could preen in the reflection of their own beneficence.

"Go home," she said, suddenly fatigued, stepping out of the relieved hug that Louisa was about to draw her into. Louisa reached for her again, stopping short at the sight of the boy at Helena's side.

"I don't understand. What happened?"

"I'll explain later," Helena said, although she doubted that she ever would, not to a woman of Louisa's upbringing. "I'll be fine. There's just something I need to attend to with this one." She gave the boy a shake, and he glared at her.

It took more persuading than Helena had anticipated to get Louisa to take a hansom cab home, and they had to walk several blocks, she, Louisa, and the boy, before they found one both free and seemingly trustworthy. To Louisa's repeated questions about she why had run after that "poor thing," Helena would only shake her head, and Louisa eventually grew so frustrated at Helena's refusal to respond that by the time she climbed into the carriage, she had descended into a resentful silence. She removed her fingers when Helena tried to raise them to her lips in a half-hearted apology and looked straight ahead as the cab merged back into traffic.

Relieved of Louisa's presence, Helena looked about her, the tenements having given way to a series of equally unprepossessing businesses, and yanked the boy with her into a shop that, if its crudely lettered signage was to be believed, sold breads and pastries. The boy finally wrested free of her and, instead of running to the door, ran to the counter, pointing to a plate stacked with rolls. "Three of them," he demanded, attempting to stare down Helena. "And coffee."

The shop's proprietor, and by the looks of an apron powdery with flour tied around his waist the shop's baker as well, looked at Helena questioningly. She nodded in assent and ordered the same, figuring the boy would eat what she didn't, and led him to a table far from the counter. Although they were the only customers, she didn't want to make it too easy for the baker to overhear them. She brushed the crumbs and a dead fly or two from the table's surface. The boy sat across from her, perched on the edge of his seat. He had wolfed down one of the rolls and had started on the second, and Helena judged she had only a couple of minutes before he grabbed her rolls and rushed out of the shop.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Josef," he said through a half-masticated chunk of roll.

He looked small in the chair, and she had felt the boniness of his arms and shoulders as she gripped him. Initially, she would have put him at eight or nine, but he wasn't a young child, only malnourished, and the hardness and calculation in his eyes suggested he had left childhood behind long ago. No matter, she had never expected to play to any vestige of innocence he might still retain.

"I need someone to find a woman for me. She's a prostitute who works the streets where you tried to rob me." Helena hesitated, reluctant to describe Monika's most salient feature. "She has blond hair," she fumbled, trying to describe her way around the disfigurement.

"The whore what got her face stove in?" Josef volunteered, breaking his last roll in half before drinking down his coffee. "I saw you run after her. I thought anyone who follows Crazy Em has to be an easy mark.

"Crazy Em?" Helena repeated.

"It's what everyone calls her. Don't know what her name is. She just goes around talking to herself, saying 'Em, Em, Em.'" He crammed one half of the roll into his mouth. "Are you eating those?" He pointed to Helena's rolls.

She pushed them across the table, and he stuffed them into the pockets of a pair of knickers held up with a piece of rope. Em. Emily? Her own name? It was better not to dwell on it – that screeching skeleton of a woman with her brutalized face and equally brutalized spirit. She wasn't Monika, not as Helena had known her. "I'll pay you to keep an eye out for her. I want to be able to find her."

He shrugged. "That's easy enough. She sleeps under the docks, in the alleyways. Old worn-out whores like her, no one wants them. Someone'll shiv her or roll her off the dock. Or she'll cough up her lungs."

Helena knew it was futile and would only increase the amount of money he would extract from her, but she couldn't stand the malicious smile he gave her, his lips flecked with breadcrumbs. Her hand shot out and twisted his, hard; he dropped the last half of his roll, yelping in pain. "That's what I'm paying you to prevent," she hissed, releasing him.

He rubbed his wrist, eyeing her warily. "It's your money."

They agreed upon a price, which was almost all of the money Helena had in her reticule. They would meet here, the next day at the same time. Helena had wondered whether he could tell time, but Josef squared his thin shoulders in affront when she asked him to confirm that he knew when four o'clock was, claiming with wounded pride that he knew his numbers and letters too. Taking the money she gave him, he cockily asked, "How do you know I won't just take this and run?"

Giving him a level stare, Helena said, "How do you know that I won't hire a bigger boy to beat you to a bloody pulp if you don't do what I've hired you for?"

He looked down at his wrist, still red, and pursed his lips. After finishing his coffee, he sauntered from the shop with a swagger to his step so outsized for his small body that he stumbled to the side trying to catch his balance. In spite of herself, Helena smiled at his performance, then weighed her reticule in her hand and hoped she had enough money left over to hire a cab home.

This was a day that Henry wasn't at home. Nor would he be home tomorrow or for the next several days. He was traveling to Washington to broker a deal that would keep the administration's collective heads above water, he had informed her the night before with a self-satisfaction that he didn't bother to hide. Helena had known better than to quiz him on particulars, but she would pass along the information to Leena when she came to the mansion tomorrow. And when she got that bit of business out of the way, she would ask for Leena's help with Monika. Helena ran plans through her head all night instead of sleeping, the need, first, to find Monika, then to hire the men it would take to wrestle her into a cab, and, finally, to secure a place where, with Leena's assistance, she might heal.

But Leena shook her head through Helena's rapid-fire outline, saying at the end of it, "I can't help her, Helena."

Helena, pacing in front of the fireplace in her sitting room, whirled to face her. "Can't or won't?" she asked sharply.

Leena leaned forward from her seat on the sofa, her gaze fixed firmly on Helena. "I'm not refusing you. If you're able to find her, I'll do what I can for her. But it sounds as though she's too far gone, too sick for me to help." In an uncharacteristic gesture, she clutched at the folds of her skirt and, taking a deep breath, said, "You can't help her, Helena."

Seeing the sympathy in her face, Helena remembered the pity that flashed in Mrs. Frederic's eyes all those months ago when she had asked after Monika. "I suppose you know that from looking in that crystal ball of yours," she spit out in fury.

With another shake of her head, Leena said sadly, "No, it's knowing human nature. She won't accept your help, and the harder you try to force it on her, the harder she'll try to flee. As cold as it may sound, the kindest thing you can do for her is to leave her be."

Helena felt the unfamiliar pressure of tears building. She hadn't cried in years and, pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes, she refused to cry now. She had cried so hard and for so long after she lost Christina that she thought she had exhausted her capacity to cry, as if summoning tears would be like sending a bucket down a well long gone dry. Besides, crying was the only resort of the helpless, and she would be damned if she would allow herself to feel that helpless again. "Then it's a good thing I'm not known for being kind," she said briskly.

Leena smiled an odd, wistful smile as she rose from the sofa. "Part of me knows I shouldn't wish you luck, but I do." She halted Helena's pacing by taking Helena's hands in hers and squeezing them affectionately. "Let me know if you find her. I'll do my best for her."

Days later, Helena was forced to acknowledge that Leena had been right. Josef hadn't been able to locate Monika, though, in his own words, he had searched "every stinkin' hole big enough for her to hide in." Looking at him as he sank his strangely baby-sized teeth into a meat pie (over the course of their short acquaintance they had graduated from rolls to pastries), his jaws working as his eyes shuttered in bliss, Helena was inclined to believe him. She had no foundation for doing so other than his comment, expressed with a pungency all his own but offered with an air of almost Leena-like compassion, "That whore, she's like an animal what's dying and don't want nobody following it."

Helena wasn't certain whether the compassion was directed towards her or Monika, but she accepted it in silence. And after a wary reconnaissance to ensure that Helena's hands were still folded together on the table and not reaching out to wrench his arm, as she had done during their second meeting when he asked her why she was interested in that "rotted out old bitch," Josef poked the rest of the pastry into his mouth. She studied him as he rolled the pastry from one side of his mouth to another, his cheeks distended as he tried to chew it down to a manageable size. Granted, he had his drawbacks, but another plan was beginning to form in her mind, and she needed help. If she couldn't help Monika, she wanted, at the least, to know what had brought her to this pass, and that required finding someone still in Mrs. Sloan's employ willing to talk. There was the older girl she had sought information from, Agnes was her name. It had been well over a year since Helena had worked for Mrs. Sloan and a year was a long time for one of Mrs. Sloan's girls, but it was a place to start. But first she needed to find out where the girls were currently living.

"I have another job for you, if you want it," she said.

Josef was curious enough to stop chewing. "How'm I supposed to do it while I'm looking for Crazy Em?"

Helena stared out the shop's windows, seeing with a clarity that was almost too much to bear every smear and every speck on the glass. Suddenly everything in the shop was painfully in focus, from the baker adjusting his display to Josef's shrewd, inquisitive face, and what was dissolving even as Helena tried, perversely, to hold onto it was the horror that Monika had become. She had already made the decision, she just needed to own up to it. "I don't want you to look for her anymore." She was surprised to hear how matter of fact she sounded because what was ringing in her ears was Monika's rich, easy laughter, its lazy disregard of time, clients, Mrs. Sloan, of everything except Helena and the bed they shared. Then that too faded, and she dragged her chair closer to the table and proceeded to tell Josef what she now wanted him to find.

It hadn't taken him long, a few days spent scouting the neighborhood where Helena had last stayed in one of Mrs. Sloan's brownstones, assisted by some of his friends. They had pretended to be looking for menial jobs to perform, no pretense really, wearing clothes that Helena had purchased for them. While the rags that Josef and his friends wore would raise no eyebrows on the Lower East Side, they would mark the boys as hooligans and thieves, which of course they were, to the residents of the far more prosperous areas north. Josef had described to her a house at which "gents" came and went, especially at night. And there was a man, he said, who seemed to live at the house and who chased him away when he came to the door asking for work. "An ugly sonuva-" Josef grunted.

Helena held up her hand. "No appraisal, just details, please."

Josef said, "He's big and he's got a mean-looking scar running through his chin like this." He drew his finger across his own sharp chin.

"Kincaid," she said softly. If Kincaid was still with Mrs. Sloan, then Agnes might be, too. She knew it was a slim hope to cling to; Kincaid was worth more to Mrs. Sloan than one of her girls. Agnes more than likely was working for a lesser version of Mrs. Sloan somewhere else in the city, the brownstone traded in for a clapboard, the bank presidents demoted to bank tellers.

But Helena hired a cab with a driver sufficiently disinterested in what he was getting paid to do that he merely hawked a gob of phlegm onto the street when Helena said she wanted him to park the carriage a discreet distance from the newest house Mrs. Sloan had rented and to wait until she gave him a signal to move.

The interior of the carriage was stifling under the early summer sun, smelling of sweat and horses, but Helena's patience was rewarded on the third afternoon when a woman emerged from the house and began to walk toward where the carriage was parked. The woman squinted into the sunlight, her face pleating in uncertainty, unsure whether the carriage was for hire, and Helena remembered Agnes wrinkling her face in the same manner as she peered near-sightedly at an object only a few feet away. Helena rapped the top of the carriage's roof with the end of her parasol, and the driver obediently urged the horse forward. Agnes exchanged a few words with the driver and opened the door to enter the carriage when she spied Helena in the corner. Helena knew it was too dark for Agnes to be able to make out who she was, and she invited Agnes in, indicating she was willing to share the cab. Agnes, after another doubtful glance, took the seat opposite her.

As the carriage rolled down the street, Helena said conversationally, "Tell me, Agnes, how's business for Mrs. Sloan these days?"

Startled, Agnes looked more closely at her, trying to distinguish Helena's features from the shadows. "Who are you?" she asked uneasily.

Helena obliged her by bending into the sunlight that shone through the glass partition of the door. "Admittedly, the last time you saw me I wasn't at my best."

Agnes sucked in a breath. "Emily." Her eyes couldn't settle on Helena, and they roved toward the top of the carriage as though she might at any minute ask the driver to stop. "Mrs. Sloan said you had died." Agnes' eyes nervously skimmed over her before flashing up to the carriage's roof again. "We were all sorry to hear that," she hastily added.

"Despite Mrs. Sloan's and Dr. Barbour's best efforts, I did survive," Helena said dryly. "But I'm hoping to talk to you about something else, Agnes."

Agnes tried on a smile, but it hung awkwardly on her mouth. "I'm not sure what I can tell you, Emily. You know how close-mouthed they are at the house. Besides I'm only supposed to be gone for a little while. I'm just picking up a few things Mrs. Sloan wants for the girls."

"I'll let you get back to Mrs. Sloan soon enough," Helena said, her voice icing over as she regally leaned against the back of the seat. "I'll also recompense you handsomely for your time. So I can either let you out now with nothing to show for it but the glad tidings of my return to health, or you can humor me for a few minutes more and be the richer for it."

Agnes took in the expensive tailoring of Helena's dress, the stylish shoes and hat, the parasol. Helena watched as Agnes mentally calculated the cost and bit back a satisfied smile as, her posture relaxing, Agnes settled herself more comfortably on the seat. "What do you want to know?"

"You can tell me what happened to Monika. You probably don't recall, but I asked you once about her, and I got the impression that you knew more than you were willing to share."

Alarm flared briefly in Agnes' eyes, but taking in the carriage and Helena's appearance once more, she seemed to conclude that little harm could come to her now. "I don't suppose it hurts anybody to tell it after all this time." She paused, all the better to gauge the level of Helena's interest, and Helena saw the naked cupidity in Agnes' expression.

"Go on," she said brusquely.

"Monika used to live in the same house with us. But she was a troublemaker, always talking about how she was going to leave for something better. It made the girls restless, and Mrs. Sloan didn't like that. So she put Monika in the other house, where she kept the girls who were a problem." Agnes' voice slowed and sank almost to a whisper. "We've all serviced men we'd rather forget, but nothing like these girls had to do." She cleared her throat before resuming. "There were rumors that Monika had started acting up again. Apparently she had taken a shine to one of the girls." At that Helena's heart lurched painfully in her chest, and she busied herself redraping the fall of her dress over her knees. "Mrs. Sloan doesn't mind about that as long as it doesn't interfere with business. But I guess Monika was saying she was going to take the girl with her when she left, and Mrs. Sloan didn't like that at all. But Monika's a lot of talk. When we lived in the same house, she was always spinning stories about how she had grown up in a castle, but she came from the same rat-infested part of the city as me. Or she was going to become an actress once she left or marry a count." Agnes wagged in her head in bemusement. "They were all just wishes and dreams. She was no more going to run off with that girl than fly to the moon, but Mrs. Sloan had gotten tired of her. The next thing I heard was that she was gone, that Mrs. Sloan had kicked her out."

Helena wondered if she had been the girl, remembering that Monika, albeit jokingly, had said she might take her with her to the Riviera one day.  But there was been other girls, in the house where Monika resided as well as in the beds in which Monika entertained her clients.  Girls whom Helena wouldn’t have known, who might have had a surer claim on Monika’s affections than she had.  Helena felt a sudden, ridiculous resentment that she hadn’t been the one whom Monika had preferred.  The jealousy that had never once visited her during their afternoons together, when it might have occurred to her to ask whether Monika looked at other women with the same casually possessive gaze, enveloped her now. "So," she asked, with a neutrality that failed to disguise the intensity of her interest, "who was this girl whom Monika liked?"

"Oh, if it had been one of us regular girls that Monika cared for, I don't think Mrs. Sloan would have been so upset. But this girl was her prized possession, the goose that laid the golden eggs." Agnes' tone had changed. She had come to a part of her story that seemed to especially please her, and Helena registered with increasing discomfort both the gloating that lurked behind her words and the condescension with which Agnes was looking at her. "Why who else but you, Emily?"

Helena’s jealousy was replaced by a coldness that had her practically shivering in the stifling confines of the carriage.  How stupid, how childish. . . how self-indulgent to pretend to an intimacy that she had never allowed herself and Monika to have.  While she hadn’t hesitated to let Monika enjoy every inch of her, she had kept her emotions at a remove.  Helena violently shook her head, more in disgust at her selfishness than in denial of what Agnes had said. "I thought Mrs. Sloan might have found out about the gifts that she had hidden. . . . "

"She did, but that was cause only for a beating," Agnes said off-handedly, as if beatings were as regular and unremarkable as the meals the girls consumed in the brownstone’s kitchen.  “Then she had to go and mouth off about how the two of you were going to set yourselves up, that you didn’t need the likes of a Mrs. Sloan anymore.”

Helena knew she needed to regain her composure and, more importantly, control of the conversation. Beyond the fact that there was no advantage in letting Agnes see how her words upset her, she didn't want to betray anything of what she and Monika had shared, however impoverished it had been, in front of this woman, with her avaricious eyes and her cold, tight mouth that could snap shut like a coin purse. "Do you believe that Mrs. Sloan simply let Monika pack her bags and leave?"

Agnes lifted a shoulder in indifference. "I'm only telling you what I heard."

Helena held Agnes' gaze. "Let me tell you what I know. I saw Monika, or what they had left of her, plying her trade in a part of this city that you would shudder to enter. They beat her so badly, Kincaid and whomever else Mrs. Sloan had hired for the job, she can barely walk, and she's so disfigured that the men she approaches can't even look her in the face. That's what they did to someone who talked back to Mrs. Sloan." She let the silence in the carriage thicken and Agnes began to shift uneasily on the seat. "Imagine what she would do to someone who sang like a little bird about the goings on in the house for a few dollars," Helena said, smiling sweetly.

"You wouldn't," Agnes blustered, and as her bluster faltered, she whined, "You promised-"

"I made no promises," Helena said. "I told you I would pay you, and I will. And once you return to Mrs. Sloan's house, this is what you're going to do. You're not going to say a word about me to Mrs. Sloan, and you're going to keep track of all the comings and goings in the house, and each week you're going to meet me here and tell me all about them."

"Or you're going to Mrs. Sloan about me?" Agnes asked sourly.

"I'd rather just pay you, if that's all right with you," Helena said.

Agnes nodded, calculation replacing fear. "For how long?"

"For as long as I say." Helena didn't know how long herself but thought it better to assume an air of mystery. She hadn't been certain what she might do if she found out the reason for Monika's disappearance, and while she had only Agnes's word to rely on, which probably wasn't all that reliable, she remembered her last conversation with Mrs. Sloan. The ruthlessness she had seen then - yes, Mrs. Sloan would be capable of doing almost anything to protect her investments. She would plan more - and better - later, but for now, she simply needed to get Agnes out of her carriage.

She had the driver take them to the shop that Agnes had intended to visit and, into Agnes' outthrust hand she pressed more cash than she had intended, but she wanted to get that face, any reminder of Mrs. Sloan, out of her field of vision. She huddled in a corner of the carriage until the driver arrived at the mansion, and as she hurried across the grand entrance toward one of the winding staircases, she looked down as she was crossing the marble noticing how like veins the striations of color appeared against the milky whiteness of the stone, and she had the uneasy sense that she was treading on skin. She shook her head to dispel the notion and fled to the sanctuary of her sitting room, but even there she could find no comfort. She paced the length of the room, feeling, for the first time since Mr. Tremaine had summarily moved her into his home, the weight of its vastness, its impersonal perfection. Thoughts of Monika and what Agnes had claimed was the reason for her disappearance chased themselves on the shortest of circuits in her mind. She rang for James, a maid, someone to distract her from the hectic rush of her thoughts, but no sooner did a servant appear than Helena sent her away, unable to bear the respectful, downward cast of her eyes, the submissive waiting for her mistress' command. Helena wondered if the girl was blind not to see that she was just a whore whom Mr. Tremaine temporarily favored, prettier than most and with a superior air, but still a whore. Monika must have been both blind and stupid to believe that she had been worth saving.

As Helena paced around a long, low table in front of the sofa, she gave it a vicious kick. She could picture Monika, bruised and bloody, but not broken, not yet, jeering at Mrs. Sloan that she and Helena had no need of her.  They were Snow White and Sleeping Beauty; more than one man would be willing to set them up for his exclusive enjoyment.  Foolish, foolish, foolish. How could Monika have been so reckless? Helena gave the table another kick, and this time she struck it, not with the toe of her shoe, but with the top of her foot.  She swore and collapsed on the sofa, squeezing her foot to rid it of the sting.  Monika had been reckless because, in her own way, she had been another slow suicide.  She had been talking as much about herself when she had described Helena as a slow suicide, and, unable to look outside her own misery, Helena hadn’t seen it. Just as she had never inquired about the missteps and misfortunes that had brought Monika to Mrs. Sloan, she had never considered that Monika might be seeking obliteration at someone else’s hands.

Strange that no matter how indifferent to her fate Helena believed herself to be, she always survived and managed even to prosper. Whereas Monika prowled the alleyways, drowning, her lungs too ruined to absorb the air she struggled to breathe in, Helena had been thrown a golden lifeline by Henry Tremaine. And before Monika became the sacrificial lamb, there had been Christina, over whose tiny, fever-wracked body Helena entered into a bargain to end an intolerable situation. What had Charles paid her, a thousand dollars? Five thousand dollars? A more romantic soul might break every mirror in Henry's mansion in disgust at the sight of her own reflection, but a more romantic soul wouldn't have ended up in Henry's bed in the first place. She was a bigger whore than Elizabeth Sloan.

Christina was safely beyond Helena's power to help her, or harm her. If it was too late to do anything for Monika, Helena realized, with a bitter smile, there was one course of action left open to her. With Agnes as her eyes inside the house, Helena retained the services of Josef and his friends as her eyes on the outside - at a higher price, of course, given the invaluable assistance, Josef maintained, that they had already provided. With no more than an irritated glance, Helena had agreed to the increase, charging the boys with following Mrs. Sloan and Kincaid wherever they went. Helena began spending her days tracking down and reviewing any public record she could find on Mrs. Sloan.

Engrossed in her new activities, she no longer had time for Louisa and only begrudgingly met her obligations with respect to Leena and Mrs. Frederic. Leena didn't comment on her obvious distraction other than to issue a soft "Be careful" as she left the sitting room one morning. Helena, however, never slackened in her attentions to Henry. He was the means, after all, by which she was funding her use of Agnes and Josef, and he was the measure of who she was, Helena reminded herself, every time Henry visited her bed. Never, even when she was compelled by the occasional pang of guilt about Louisa, had she so set out to please him as she did now. There was no half-expressed wish she didn't try to fulfill, and when he retreated to his own bedroom out of exhaustion, she would follow him. Days she would spend in the dusty offices of the city's registrar or its tax assessor, or she would meet Josef and Agnes to receive their updates, but her nights, whenever Henry was home, she would spend teasing him, tantalizing him. He would never turn her away, although she sensed a growing resistance, as if he understood better than she that the relentless intimacy was more aggression than seduction, an attack she was directing at herself, not him.

One night, when she would have followed him back to his bedroom, he held up both hands. "Please God, no, Charlotte, or I won't the strength to stand up in the morning." She stayed in the bed as he adjusted his nightshirt. "I'm going to visit my wife in Newport. Our youngest son is home from Harvard. I can't say exactly when I'll be back."

Helena didn't respond, and Henry said quietly, "You haven't been happy. I'm hoping you'll have resolved whatever's troubling you by the time I return."

"Or what?" she asked, just as quietly. "You'll ask me to leave?"

His laugh was rueful. "I think down deep that's what you want me to do. But I'm not at that point, although perhaps it would be better for both of us if I were." He looked at her until she reluctantly met his eyes. "I would do anything to help you, you need only ask."

"I'm in no need of your assistance, Henry."

He sighed. "That's precisely my point."

With Henry gone, she used the nights to review the information she had collected from her various sources, and she was amazed to discover how varied Mrs. Sloan's business interests were. In addition to running her brothels, she owned part interests in dry goods stores, restaurants, liveries, and so many other small businesses that Helena grew weary trying to remember them all. Although it wasn't public, she had successfully wheedled information about Mrs. Sloan's bank accounts, their number and size, from several overmatched bank tellers, who had succumbed to a few flirtatious remarks and a smile that promised much, much more. It was highly unlikely that running girls alone provided Mrs. Sloan with the funds necessary to buy into all her businesses or to grow her numerous accounts; Helena suspected, given the nature of her main business enterprise, that Mrs. Sloan extorted money from some of her clients, particularly those who frequented the "second" house. When Josef was able to confirm that Kincaid often visited neighborhoods in which his scarred, scowling face looked significantly out of place only to emerge from a home stuffing something into his jacket, Helena was further convinced. Such schemes required records, and recalling the list Mrs. Sloan was double checking when she had made her ill-fated trip to the office, Helena was certain that Mrs. Sloan kept a meticulous set of books somewhere.

Since it was doubtful that she kept them at either house, too many chances for too many girls to pry into her business, Helena guessed that Mrs. Sloan kept them at home. She had the address for Mrs. Sloan's residence but didn't realize until she hired a carriage to take her there that she had assumed it would be an unassuming brownstone in a solid but unspectacular area of the city, much like one of her brothels. But as the carriage drove down a winding road northwest of the city, Helena spotted gothic castles and Italian renaissance mansions in the distance and once more had to ratchet up the income Mrs. Sloan was receiving. Her home was more modest than its neighbors, diminutive by comparison, sporting only three stories and a fraction of the embellishments. Helena had the carriage stop a safe distance away and watched the house, noting the number of servants who came and went and paying attention to how they carried themselves. Perhaps after all these years one of her mother's domestic bromides would actually be helpful - "A servant properly trained is a servant who knows her place and is happy in the knowledge." Helena was interested in whether Mrs. Sloan had any poorly trained servants. After a couple of days of watching one of the housemaids in particular, whose rounded shoulders and grimaces suggested someone unhappy in her employment, Helena thought she had found her woman.  She knew it for certain when she saw the housemaid beat a rug with a sullen thoroughness that might just as easily be applied to flogging her mistress.

It took a only a brief conversation and the handing over of a sizeable amount of cash - with more promised - and Helena was able to peruse for a few afternoon hours, when Mrs. Sloan was away from her home, the books she kept on her brothels. Helena had learned at a very young age that there was no keeping secrets from the servants, and she was certain that nearly all of Mrs. Sloan's staff knew every hiding place in the house. The maid hadn't disappointed her, sniffing as she handed over the ledgers that she had scouted out the false bottom in the desk drawer within a week of being hired.

As she leafed through the pages of the ledgers, Helena understood why Mrs. Sloan had been at pains to hide them. Not only did they list the names of the men who paid her to keep their predilections private, but they also included descriptions of what those predilections were, and some were so repellent that Helena wanted to wipe her hands clean after she had read them. The names weren't always unknown to her, and the longer she looked at the notations in Mrs. Sloan's fastidious handwriting, the more she feared that she would find Henry's name among them. She didn't, though she recognized the names of some of his business partners. She also discovered that the money Mrs. Sloan paid the police and the city officials was only a small percentage of the money she took in - undoubtedly something that would be of keen interest to them.

The ledgers resting heavy on her lap, Helena thought about her next steps. They would have to be carefully timed, and she would need to be prepared for the consequences. She remembered the resigned expression on Henry's face when she had said she didn't need his help. He wouldn't have been a willing partner in what she was planning to do, regardless of his promises to "do anything." "Anything" wouldn't include this - although she would be reliant on both his name and his influence. She would almost certainly lose him when she put the final part of her plan into effect, and in losing him, she would also be betraying, in some sense, Leena and Mrs. Frederic. She felt she had served them well over the past ten months, that the information she provided had been useful to them, but she owed them her life, and that debt she knew she could never fully repay. Taking a steadying breath and looking out the carriage window toward Mrs. Sloan's home, she asked herself if she was ready, again, to give up this life, which, despite its frustrations, offered the comforts and privileges everyone dreamed of but only few experienced. She stroked the material of her dress; it would be a long while, if ever, before she could afford something this expensive. She clenched the fabric between her fingers as she recalled the torn, dirty garment Monika had been wearing. She was going to bring her world down around her all for just another whore like herself? Closing her eyes and letting her head rest against the back of the carriage, Helena thought about the last afternoon with Monika, how lovely she had been, how they had finally, reluctantly rolled out of the bed, so exhausted they had stumbled, laughing at each other as they had groped to put their clothes on, missing buttons and hooks, not bothering to straighten their dresses and leaving them comically askew. Was she doing this because she only now recognized that she had loved her? Helena wouldn't take refuge in such sentimentality. She would bring down Mrs. Sloan, and herself in the process, not because she had loved Monika but because she had failed to.

She purchased two sets of ledgers of the same type and heft. On one set she spent more time than she wished copying entries, not all of them by any means but a sufficient number to be convincing and in a reasonable facsimile of Mrs. Sloan's spidery handwriting. She had given the maid the other set to place in the false-bottomed drawer. It wouldn't take Mrs. Sloan long to discover the substitution, but Helena had more than adequately recompensed the maid for the risk. She then had a note delivered to the police commissioner requesting him to meet with her; it was written on Henry's stationery. No one turned down an invitation to the mansion, even if it came from the mistress and not Mr. Tremaine himself.

The commissioner was punctual. He was also not a little intimidated by the mansion's opulence but chose to disguise it by insisting to Helena that he had squeezed the meeting in between more pressing appointments. She ignored his posturing and directed him to sit across from her. She had chosen the most formal of the parlors to greet him in and had asked James to select the most uncomfortable of the chairs in the room and to place it opposite the sofa. She smiled slightly, coldly as the commissioner squirmed, trying to find a spot on the cushion that might concede his presence. Several minutes were wasted as he first pretended that no relationship existed between his force and Mrs. Sloan and then, as Helena placed the ledgers on the table, cynically inquired as to how she came by the knowledge.

She didn't answer his question, saying calmly, "The first book is her running account of the payments she has made to your officers to be able to run her business without interference. The second book is an account of one of her side businesses, the extortion of certain of her clients." Helena leaned back, watching him as he ran his fingers down the pages of the first ledger, his choleric-looking face growing redder as he realized how small a cut of Mrs. Sloan's profits he was actually receiving. As he pulled the second ledger toward him, Helena reached over and clapped her hand onto its cover. "The information in this book is yours only upon your acceptance of certain conditions."

The commissioner's small dark eyes rested on pillows of flesh, and at Helena's words, they became smaller as the pillows wrinkled in annoyance. Helena found his appearance disagreeable and the reduction of the size of his eyes to currants was not an improvement. "And what conditions are those?" he demanded.

The second ledger contained the names of only those clients who engaged in the most reprehensible practices. The other names Helena was temporarily keeping to herself. "That you do not allow your officers to become their blackmailers in place of Mrs. Sloan, and that you will have these men arrested as soon as possible."

The commissioner protested her assumption that he would suffer anything as heinous as blackmail among members of his force. Helena swiftly cut through his blustering. "Mrs. Sloan's brothels will be under new management, if we're in agreement, Commissioner, and I assure you that they will no longer be engaged in providing the. . . exotic. . . services that these men desired. Should the new owners discover that your officers have expectations of profiting from the knowledge that these services once existed, they will be very, very unhappy."

The commissioner did not miss her emphasis upon the last three words, and he flushed an alarming shade of purple. "But this new management will be agreeable to a readjustment of the terms of our relationship?"

"Fair value will be given for your protection," Helena assured him.

He rose with visible relief from his chair and tucked the ledgers under his arm but not without receiving, first, a nod queenly in its assent from Helena. "You'll be expediting your arrest of Mrs. Sloan and her associates, I presume," she said coolly, but her heart had begun a rapid, uneven beat in her chest.

"She'll be apprehended within the hour. . . on some charge or another," he said, smiling conspiratorially at Helena. The small black eyes lingered on the delicate vases and ceramics crowding the shelves of the curio cabinets. Helena knew he was trying to calculate their value, but he couldn't begin to imagine how much Henry had paid for them, objects plundered from historic sites in Persia and the Greek isles. "She's small fish, she is, Mrs. Sloan. I'm surprised that these 'new owners' took an interest in her." His voice was knowing and all the uglier for it.

"Not so small," Helena countered, "and swimming in waters much too deep and dangerous for her." She smiled another chilly smile at the commissioner, signaling that their conversation was at an end.

She rubbed her arms once he had left the room, feeling nearly as unclean as she had when she first read Mrs. Sloan's second ledger. Glancing at the ornate clock on the mantle above the fireplace, she knew she didn't have much time before news traveled to Henry of his new arrangement with the police commissioner. It wouldn't be true, not completely, but he wouldn't know that, and he would come back from Newport in a rage, which meant that she needed to meet with Leena and Mrs. Frederic immediately.

On the rare occasions when she needed to meet with Leena outside their regular appointments, Helena would send a messenger to an address in Harlem. Today Helena had herself driven there. The address was that of a modest but well-kept residence, and as she mounted the steps to ring the front bell, Helena wondered if this was where Leena lived and wondered all the more why she had never asked. The door was opened by a young girl whose brown eyes widened in surprise at seeing Helena, and she turned away and ran down a hallway, shouting "Grandmama, there's a white lady at the door."

Helena was equally surprised when she saw Mrs. Frederic cross the foyer, but Mrs. Frederic was neither surprised nor dismayed to see Helena on her doorstep. She had an apron tied around her waist, and she dusted her hands on it before opening the screen door to let her in. "I trust this is important" was her only comment as she invited Helena to follow her to the kitchen.

"I didn't know I would be disturbing you at home," Helena said. "I needed to speak with you and Leena, and I decided to forego our usual intermediary." She looked with curiosity into a quiet parlor on her right, its furniture crowded by the inclusion of a piano and accessorized by a large number of crocheted doilies.

"No matter, Miss Wells, Leena is here. She and Josie are helping me to bake cookies."

"Cookies?" Helena asked in disbelief. She hadn't expected this, the cozy home, the doilies, the granddaughter, not to mention Mrs. Frederic in an apron. She had expected an office, with people barging in and out flourishing slips of paper crammed with information, and Mrs. Frederic at the center, behind a desk buried in similar slips of paper, barking commands at her minions.

"Molasses cookies," Mrs. Frederic said. "You'll have to try one." She twisted her head to look back at Helena, a sly smile suggesting that she knew exactly what Helena had expected to see.

The kitchen was dominated by a large cookstove, which was covered with baking sheets filled with cookies. At a counter, Leena and Josie were lifting cooled cookies from a sheet and placing every other one in a cookie jar. The ones not going into the jar were the ones they were eating, or rather Josie was eating. Leena was stacking hers, but the stack never grew since Josie was as quickly stealing them from the top. Josie was giggling, and Helena thought she had never seen Leena look so young or carefree as she giggled with the girl.

"Josie," Mrs. Frederic called to her granddaughter. "Why don't you take a plate of cookies next door to Mrs. Goodwin."

Leena looked up and saw Helena. The smile faded from her face, but she efficiently lined a plate with cookies and handed it to Josie, who, taking little interest in Helena's presence, accepted the plate and, the back door slamming behind her, ran down the steps, shouting, "Mrs. Goodwin! Mrs. Goodwin!"

Mrs. Frederic waited until the sound of Josie's voice trailed away before she said, "What brings you here, Miss Wells?"

As Helena searched for a way to tell Mrs. Frederic that her relationship with Mr. Tremaine and, thus, her usefulness as a conduit of information on his doings was about to end, Mrs. Frederic had her sit at the table and placed a small plate of cookies and a glass of lemonade in front of her. Helena looked blankly at the cookies until, feeling Mrs. Frederic's gaze drill into her, she took one and absently bit into it. It was hard to reconcile this Mrs. Frederic, the grandmother, the baker of rather marvelous cookies Helena had to admit, with the Mrs. Frederic who was the broker of secrets collected from all corners of the city. "You're the owner, or soon will be, of the whorehouses run by Elizabeth Sloan," she said bluntly.

Mrs. Frederic looked no less imperturbable but her eyebrows did fractionally rise. "And why would I want to own them, Miss Wells?" She asked very softly.

"Because properly run, with girls trained to elicit confidences, they can provide you with all the 'currency' you need." Helena put down her cookie, brushing her fingers on the napkin Mrs. Frederic had given her.

"How did you obtain them?" Mrs. Frederic asked, grabbing a towel and using it to slide a baking sheet into the oven.

"I made the police commissioner a more attractive offer."

"You had her arrested." Mrs. Frederic shut the oven door. She removed her spectacles and polished them on her apron. "I'm assuming you encouraged him to think that it was what Mr. Tremaine wanted him to do." Blinking near-sightedly at Helena, she asked, "Does Mr. Tremaine know what you've done?"

Helena shook her head. "I'll talk to him once he returns from Newport."

"I imagine that will be a most interesting conversation." Readjusting her spectacles, Mrs. Frederic stood in front of the back door, looking out. "He won't appreciate your using his name."

Helena's laugh was mirthless, hollow. "He won't just be furious. He'll believe that I've betrayed him."

"That you used him." Mrs. Frederic's sigh was audible. "I hope sacrificing your relationship for the dubious pleasure of having Mrs. Sloan arrested is worth it."

Helena crumbled a cookie between her fingers. "I know you won't understand, but it was something I had to do. The business is yours to do with as you will. It's not enough for all that you've done for me, but she was a worse woman, a crueler woman than even I knew."

Mrs. Frederic continued to look out the back door, but Leena, who, throughout their exchange, had scraped the remaining dough from the mixing bowl and molded it between her hands to form the last of the cookies, as if the conversation had no bearing on her, raised her eyes from the baking sheet to gaze steadily at Helena.

Helena mouthed "I'm sorry" at her then said it aloud to Mrs. Frederic's back. She waited a few moments, but Mrs. Frederic didn't move. Quietly leaving the kitchen and returning to the front of the house, she was reaching for the door to let herself out, when Leena spoke from behind her. "She's not through with you yet." There was no mistaking the humor in her voice.

"I can't see how I would be of any use to her now."

"She'll need someone knowledgeable to run the brothels."

Helena smiled in wry appreciation. Facing Leena, she caught the speculative look in her eyes. "What? Tell me. You've never been shy with me before."

"You're able to surprise me. Not many people can."

"I thought you could see my future in detail," Helena said.

"As I keep trying to tell you, it doesn't work like that. I don't see anything." Leena hesitated, then said gently, "I knew you cared more for Monika than you were willing to admit, but I still underestimated how much."

Helena glanced away, not wanting Leena to read her expression. "Not enough, Leena. This was all I could do for her." The silence between them was not uncomfortable, but Helena wanted to know if Leena was as disappointed in her as Mrs. Frederic obviously was. She couldn't ask for Leena's approval, but Helena hoped for her understanding. "Do you think I've thrown everything away for the sake of a gesture?"

"This was no gesture. Don't belittle what you're feeling. You're angry and you're grieving, and those are both better than numbness." Leena took one of Helena's hands and spread the fingers against Helena's chest. "Remember when I said you weren't healed in here? You've more work to do, but I feel something changing in you, Helena, for the better." Her words were comforting, but something dark and troubled flitted across her face. "I think you'll find that you haven't thrown everything away, but you scare me, Helena. I'm frightened to think of what you might do when your whole heart is involved."

"You needn't worry," Helena said, putting her hand on top of Leena's to reassure her. "I'll never again be in a position to risk anything of value. Within a few days' time, my bags and I will probably be deposited on the sidewalk outside Henry's home." It was only a wobbly smile that she could summon, but it was enough to coax an answering smile from Leena. It did nothing, however, to lessen the concern in Leena's face.

...

An inquiry sent to the commissioner the next day received the response that Mrs. Sloan was being held in the Tombs. As Helena was led down a dark, dank corridor by the guard, she quickly learned to keep to a center path, the women in the cells on either side of her alternately pleading for her help or spitting at her and promising to gut her like a fish were they ever to meet her in the streets. The guard stopped in a front of a cell at the far end. He grunted at its occupant, "Someone here to see you," and banged his club against the bars for good measure. His lips curling in a sneer, he said to Helena, "You better be pounding on the door pretty soon, or I'll forget you're in here." Passing her on the way back to the guardroom, he leaned into her, grazing her breast with his arm, before sauntering away, even the jingling of the keys on his belt sounding derisive.

Helena stayed against the far wall of the corridor, breathing shallowly and rubbing her sweaty palms against her skirt. Odd how that gray little woman sitting hunched over on the cot could still inspire anxiety. From this distance, and in the dimness, she could be somebody's grandmother. If the imposing Mrs. Frederic could be a grandmother, why not this woman? If Helena tried hard enough, she could imagine Mrs. Sloan surrounded by grandchildren as fair and plump as cherubs, lisping nursery rhymes, until Mrs. Sloan lifted her head at the sound of the scraping of Helena's shoes on the floor. Her expression wasn't grandmotherly; it was cold and predatory, as though the bars in her cells were no more than a paper barrier that she could shred at will. Her eyes searched the shadows outside her cell. "Who are you? You're sure as hell not a friend. A friend would have announced himself or, better yet, gotten me out of here."

Helena said, "You're right, I'm not a friend. I'm the one who put you here." She said it with no triumphant ring. Despite the nervousness that had her gripping her hands behind her back, underneath there was only the heaviness of exhaustion and regret. None of this would return to Monika what she had lost, and none of it would evoke any remorse in Mrs. Sloan. It was an empty ritual, this forcing Mrs. Sloan to acknowledge her vanquisher, but it was all that Helena had. She stepped into the weak light that filtered through the barred window of the cell.

Mrs. Sloan's mouth twitched, but that was the only sign of surprise she displayed. "There were rumors about you, Emily, but I didn't believe them. You were barely hanging onto life the last time I saw you. Shame what Dr. Barbour did to you."

"What you did to me," Helena corrected, a fury she had thought she was long past feeling about the loss of the baby burning through her. "He was only trying to finish what you had started."

Mrs. Sloan shrugged. "You were insisting on carrying the child. I had to protect my investment."

"Were you protecting your investment when you had Monika nearly beaten to death?" Helena hated the trembling in her voice, but Mrs. Sloan didn't seem to hear it. She was frowning, puzzled.

"Monika," she repeated softly to herself. Then louder, with recognition, she said, "Monika. She was a troublemaker." She rolled her eyes up at Helena. "Men liked her because she was a looker and game for anything. But women took a fancy to her, too," she added, her lips curving into her scythe of a smile as stared at Helena. "I made a hell of a lot of money pairing you together. From all accounts the two of you put on quite a show. But then she started making a nuisance of herself again, and she got to be more trouble than she was worth."

"I've seen her," Helena said flatly. "I've seen what Kincaid did to her." Mrs. Sloan's scrawny neck was within a few inches of her fingers, were she to work her hands through the spaces between the bars. But the fury she was feeling, like her earlier nervousness, was only a film skimming the top of a deeper fatigue, and while she would like to believe that she was so righteously enraged as to strangle the breath out of Mrs. Sloan, all she could think was that it would amount to only one more dead whore.

"While she was a liability to me, I couldn't have her be an asset for someone else. So I did what needed to be done." Mrs. Sloan's words were cool, inflectionless. "It's not an easy business running girls. You'll find that out." She twisted her head up again, searching for Helena's eyes. "You thought you could do it better, that's why you put me here?"

"I put you here because you deserve to be here. As for what happens to your business," Helena said, casually flicking her hand, "I couldn't care less."

That registered with Mrs. Sloan. She bolted upright from the cot and grabbed the bars of her cell, an angry flush mottling her face. "You have no idea how hard I worked and you think, you little bitch, that you're going to take my girls from me." Mrs. Sloan's voice was loud, exciting the other women, who started clamoring and shaking the bars of their cells. "You may be Henry Tremaine's whore, but I have friends too, friends who'll get me released and when they do -"

Helena walked away from her, not giving Mrs. Sloan the satisfaction of seeing her hurry and not listening to the threats and imprecations hurled at her back. More threats and more howls from the cells as she passed them and then finally, blessedly, she was at the door to the guardroom. She pounded the door for what seemed like hours until it opened, the guard lazily grinning at her as he slammed the door shut behind her. The carriage ride home seemed equally long and once in the mansion, she took to her bed for the rest of the day, trying to lose the image of Mrs. Sloan pursing her lips thoughtfully as she said, "I couldn't have her be an asset for someone else" in the welcome obliteration of sleep.

Henry didn't come home for another three days, and Helena was absent for the better portion of all of them, having herself driven between both of Mrs. Sloan's houses, calming the girls down and informing them that new - and better - management was taking over. Mrs. Frederic hadn't yet decided whether she would keep the brothels, but she had selected a temporary manager, a Mr. Schuyler, whom Helena was briefing on the ins and outs of running whorehouses in the city. He seemed shrewd enough, and when Helena underscored that the girls were to be paid fairly and that certain practices were no longer to be tolerated, he nodded in compliance, noting only that "There ain't going to be much profit once you pay the girls and pay off the coppers."

"Mrs. Frederic's profit will be in the information the girls glean from their clients. They're to get a bonus for every tidbit that proves to be both true and useful."

The new set of ledgers Helena had given him looked small in his large, knobby hands. He was tall and rawboned, and the sleeves of his suit ended an inch too soon on his arms. Mr. Schuyler looked like a farmer, which, Helena thought, wasn't an inappropriate background for the position he had now. Though she would tell Mrs. Frederic to increase his salary, he needed to wear better clothes for the clients who frequented the houses. "Two more things," she said. "If any of the girls want to leave, let them go, and when one of them becomes pregnant, if she wants to carry the child," Helena drew in a long breath, "let her carry it."

When Helena returned to the mansion, James met her at the door, informing her that Mr. Tremaine wanted to see her in the library. She settled her shoulders, although it did nothing to settle her stomach, which had started churning as soon as she saw James coming toward her. Like the billiards room, the library was Henry’s preserve, and Helena rarely visited it. Henry was sitting at his massive desk when Helena entered the room, writing a letter, and he jerked his head toward a chair when she said his name. The only sound in the room was the scratching of pen on paper and it went on endlessly.

Helena's eyes roamed the shelves, which were filled with items Henry had collected on his travels and precious few books. Peace pipes, carved figures of fertility goddesses, antique pistols, bottles of patent medicine, music boxes, a motley assortment of objets d'art and souvenirs. Much like Henry himself, an interesting blend of the curious and the conventional. She wondered which she would face this evening. When he put his pen down and looked at her from underneath bristling eyebrows, she knew she wouldn't be conversing with the curious, inquisitive Henry.

"Imagine my surprise when I learned that I was in bed with the commissioner of police. I had thought that I was sharing it only with you."

"Henry," she began.

"In the end, all a man has is his name. Strangely that's even more true when he seems to have everything else." He rolled the pen between his thumbs and index fingers. "There's so much gossip, so many rumors. His friends need to know where he stands. Suddenly they find out he's asked the commissioner of police to shut down a whorehouse or two. They have to wonder why he would bother with something like that, what the madam might have on him, what the police might have on him. Can he still be trusted?" He let the pen drop to the desk. "I don't know what petty vendetta you have with Elizabeth Sloan, but you have risked my name and my reputation pursuing it."

"I know how it must appear to you," Helena tried again.

The heavy eyelids fluttered opened and the hazel eyes blazed at her. "You have no idea how it appears. You have no idea how you've embarrassed me. I was having breakfast with my son, and half the men in the hotel's dining room were buzzing about my relationship with Commissioner O'Brien. I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. I looked foolish, worse, I looked weak. Dammit, Charlotte, how could you do that to me?"

"As hard as it may be for you to believe, what I did had nothing to do with you," she snapped.

"I can believe that all too easily," he roared. "I've done everything to encourage you to talk to me, to trust me, and then you go and act like a . . . a."

"A whore?" Helena supplied caustically. "Yes, I traded on your name. But, Henry, I've always given value for value received. Just like the whore I am, and this is no different." She planted her hands on his desk and leaned forward, not giving ground before his glare. "You'll find in the bottom right-hand drawer one of Mrs. Sloan's account books. You'll recognize a number of the names. Some of them, the ones associated with the worst of the activities I've already given to the commissioner, but the others are yours. You've used information like this before to get what you've wanted, so there's no need to pretend that coercion is beneath you. And as for being 'indebted' in any way to the commissioner, you'll find his name in that book too. Apparently Mrs. Sloan never approached him for money, perhaps because she was saving his secret for something bigger. So you do have something to hold over him, and having the police commissioner in your pocket, I don't have to tell you, is not a bad thing."

"Please tell me why you did it," he said quietly.

"It wouldn't matter to you," she said.

"How can you possibly know?"

"Because you didn't ask me until now." She pushed herself away from his desk. "My bags are packed. I'll ask James to call a hansom for me."

"Don't," he ground out. "I need to think this through. Promise me you won't leave until we can talk again."

It would be uncomfortable to stay while Henry made up his mind, but she had no desire to take up lodgings in some cramped boarding house. Maybe he hadn't managed to seduce her, but the mansion had. "I won't leave until we come to a decision that it's the best thing for both of us."

Henry wasn't unaware of her choice of "we" and "us." He allowed himself a weary smile. "We'll come to a mutual decision."

She didn't speak to him again for two weeks since he was called away, by telegram, to Washington the next day. Apparently even the president was concerned by the rumors, Helena sardonically thought. During the time he was gone, she attempted to compose a letter to Louisa, apologizing for her lengthy silence. But she simply stared at the paper, knowing that saying she was sorry for her absence would be only the first in a chain of apologies stretching back to the first day they had spoken. She accomplished something more productive by asking Mrs. Frederic to hire Josef, praising his ability to ferret out information. She acknowledged that he was a little light-fingered, but the occasional item lifted here and there, assuming it didn't attract the attention of the police, didn't devalue his other abilities. Introducing the boy to Mrs. Frederic, she was amused to see him whip off his cap in her presence and he showed her none of his usual cheek.

She also went to the Tombs to visit Mrs. Sloan again, if only to reassure herself that she remained securely locked up. But the guard, the same lout who had escorted her to Mrs. Sloan's cell the first time, spread his hands and said, "She ain't here."

"What do you mean she's not here?" Helena demanded.

"One day I came to work, and she wasn't in her cell. That's what I mean when I say she's not here." He pulled on his belt, thrusting his pelvis at her.

Helena ignored the gesture. "Where did she go?"

"I don't know 'cause no one tells me," he said. Moving closer to her, he whispered hoarsely, "But if you're nice to me, maybe I can find out."

Her withering glance did nothing to dent his smugness. Another query sent to the commissioner resulted in no response, and Helena was left to wonder whether one of Mrs. Sloan's friends had indeed used his influence to have her released. It was even possible that Henry had had her released, if for no other reason than to teach Helena a lesson. When Henry returned home, Helena, unsure of her reception, asked James to inquire whether Mr. Tremaine had the time to speak with her. James returned a few moments later, his professional impassivity perfectly in place, to tell her that Mr. Tremaine would speak with her in her sitting room. A small thing to cling to, but she felt that it was more promising than if he had directed her to come to the library.

Helena sat on the edge of the sofa, aimlessly revolving on its saucer a teacup one of the maids had forgotten to pick up. Henry hesitantly stood in the doorway, waiting for her to invite him in. His bearing was so different from when they had had their acrimonious exchange in the library that Helena thought he must be engulfed by awkwardness in trying to find the words to ask her to leave. He sat next to her on the sofa, almost gingerly.

"Shall I have someone bring you something, a scotch, perhaps?"

He shook his head, not looking at her. "I met with someone you know, a Mrs. Frederic. She said she worked as a cook for Mrs. Sloan when you were in her employ."

Helena closed her eyes.

"She said that you were always kind to her, which was why she was coming to me. She said she had heard of our. . . association and she was aware that Mrs. Sloan had been pushed out of the business." Henry had rested his hands on his knees, and the fingers of one hand started squeezing his kneecap. "Funny that a black woman who was just a cook should know so much about you and your goings on with Mrs. Sloan, but I've learned to accept a number of odd things about you, Charlotte, and that's not one of the oddest. She said she was speaking God's truth, and I believed her. She said that you suffered an abortion when you were with Mrs. Sloan, one so incompetently performed that you almost died. She said that Mrs. Sloan and the doctor were so afraid that you were going to die on the premises that they dumped you, more dead than alive, at the entrance to a hospital. She also said you weren't the only girl it had happened to. To the extent that you had anything to do with taking the brothels away from Mrs. Sloan, she wanted to pass along her gratitude."

Helena was silent, picturing Mrs. Frederic in her apron, wearing an expression of abject humility, and seeking an audience with the great Henry Tremaine. How much had that cost her in pride, seeking to rectify Helena's mistakes? Henry continued softly, "Now she might be a cook, but she was never a cook for Mrs. Sloan's girls. She knows you, that's clear, but it's by other means, which I'm pretty sure you won't tell me. She came to see me because she wanted to tell me something you wouldn't tell me yourself. Is it true, about the baby and what Mrs. Sloan did to you?"

"Yes."

"I'm glad to know that because now I can rest easy about what I've done." Helena sent him an inquiring glance as he rose from the sofa. "I looked through that ledger you gave me, and Mrs. Sloan knows some powerful men. Men who could as easily release her from jail as I put her in it." Helena couldn't miss the irony behind his pronunciation of "I," but it wasn't tinged with anger. In fact, he almost sounded amused. But the amusement was quickly replaced by a quiet savageness that made Helena flinch. "So I put her where she can never be released. I drummed up a relative to commit her to the state asylum and then I paid him to travel as fast and as far away as he could. She won't be able to hurt you again, ever." He smiled, a feral lifting of his upper lip. Helena put her face in her hands, but he squatted in front of her and gently removed them. "I don't want you to leave, Charlotte, but I can't have the Mrs. Frederics in your life telling me things you should be telling me yourself. If you're going to stay, you're going to have to place your trust in me."

He didn't come to her that night. She knew he wouldn't unless she asked him. She slept restlessly as she always did, visited by the usual haunting dreams of Christina. But toward morning they faded, replaced by something new. She was in darkness and she was afraid. Ahead of her, she could make out a body and figures gathered around it. At first she thought they were trying to help, but the body was too still and the heads of the figures were bobbing up and down. They were feeding on it. Despite her horror, she rushed to drive them away, attacking them with her fists and feet until only two remained. One lifted her head, the eyes a cold rain-rinsed gray, the thin lips coated with blood. She kicked and hit at Mrs. Sloan until, with the magic of dreams, she disappeared. However, the remaining figure was harder to dislodge. No matter how violently Helena struck her the figure wouldn't move and stubbornly continued feeding. One wildly aimed kick managed to move the victim's head, and Helena recognized that it was Monika. Only then did the figure, snarling, look up at Helena, and in the wild, dark eyes, she saw herself.

She didn't know how loudly she had been screaming until the door to her bedroom was flung open. Henry motioned for the servants to go away. Climbing into her bed, he pulled her into his arms, and though she flailed against his chest, he didn't loosen his hold. Eventually she stopped struggling, and as she released a pent-up breath, the sigh turned into sobs, and she wept until she thought she and Henry might float away on her tears. He murmured nonsense words into her ear and stroked her hair and rocked her like he might a child. The sun rose and still she cried, and he didn't leave her. He was due in Boston the following day, but in a voice worn out by tears, she asked him to stay. She fell asleep with her head on his shoulder, and when she woke hours later, long past the time when he should have caught a train, he was still there.

...

Helena would later acknowledge, and then only to herself with a bit of a rueful pang, that it was her tears that had finally won him over and not the skills she had so regularly exhibited in his bed. There was no more talk of her leaving, and, over time, their relationship deepened. She didn't tell him everything about her past and who she was, but she told him enough that had he wanted to, he could have excavated Helena Wells practically whole. But he didn't challenge the name and the tissue-thin identity she had adopted, although sometimes he called her "Charlotte" with a teasing smile, as if he wanted her to know that he had deciphered the rules of a game in which she was no longer the only player. They didn't talk about Elizabeth Sloan again, nor did he ever tell her what he did with the ledger she had given him. In passing, he once mentioned with a great scowl of disgust that he couldn't understand why some men couldn't act like men when they were with a woman, but Helena only smiled fondly at his bewilderment, knowing all too well that Henry's enjoyment of fantasies was straightforward, she playing Cleopatra to his Caesar or Venus to his Mars. She didn't mistake her growing affection for passion, but she was surprised to discover how well it could act as a substitute, and she found with him in his bed a pleasure she could express with full honesty.

That was where he expected her to sleep when he was at the mansion, which occurred with greater and greater frequency. She maintained her separate rooms, but the sitting room was the only one she used. While he might growl about her bottles of perfume cluttering the surface of his bureau or her nightgowns being flung over the back of a chair, she accepted them as the contented grumbles they were and didn't bother to change her habits. He still spent evenings out with his cronies, but he returned before midnight and the stories of chorus girls dwindled to good-natured jabs issuing from the billiards room to the effect that "Tremaine's becoming too damned domesticated." He was more comfortable being seen with her in public; he no longer rented rooms or floors in his favorite restaurants, at ease eating with her in view of the other patrons. Newspapers began hesitantly referring to his being in the company of his "close friend, Mrs. Ramsey" and Henry only took umbrage if the papers hinted more broadly that Helena was his mistress.

What she came to appreciate most, however, was his increasing willingness to share with her his plans for expanding his business empire and his frustrations with having to negotiate with, browbeat, cozen, or bribe government officials, stretching from congressmen to members of the president's cabinet, to achieve his ends. He didn't speak to her as an equal, she knew her role was to listen and to pat his hand consolingly, but she could no more keep her opinions to herself than she could listen to his posturing without gleefully pricking him, and as he bore her teasing with more patience than she had expected, he also more readily considered her comments than she would have thought possible.

She passed on very few of these confidences to Leena and Mrs. Frederic. Her relationship with them had changed as well. After a few months of operating the brothels, Mrs. Frederic, though she recoiled at the designation of madam, appreciated the steady stream of information provided by the girls, and decided to keep the houses in her small portfolio. Mr. Schuyler was eventually reassigned, and while Helena initially questioned the wisdom of it, Agnes was appointed in his stead. After hearing Helena's doubts, Mrs. Frederic had said placidly, "People change, sometimes even for the better. That could be said of you, so why deny the same for Agnes?" Having less need for news of the doings of Mr. Tremaine, Mrs. Frederic no longer expected Helena to disclose everything he told her related to his businesses, and Helena, accordingly, volunteered only as much as she felt comfortable revealing. The number of her meetings with Leena declined, consequently, although, since she was more frequently in the company of Mrs. Frederic, she saw Leena almost as often as she did when Leena had been coming to the mansion.

Given the scare she had had when Helena had been on the verge, seemingly, of destroying her relationship with Mr. Tremaine, Mrs. Frederic had come to the conclusion, she was not shy about saying, that an insufficiently distracted Helena was a threat to all. She was less willing to acknowledge that Helena's ability to steal Mrs. Sloan's business out from under her spoke to talents sorely in need of being further exploited. So she took Helena on as something of a protégé, and Helena finally saw Mrs. Frederic at work. There was no office where Mrs. Frederic met with her "informants" and there was no visible web in which she was the center. A typical work day for Mrs. Frederic consisted of first visiting with Mrs. Goodwin and then with Mrs. Baker who lived on the other side of her and Mrs. Talbot across the street. Among the three ladies, they had fifteen children and sixty grandchildren, who worked at every kind of job, from street sweeper to deliveryman, and there was nothing of value that they didn't overhear. After several cups of tea and slices of banana bread, Helena felt less than inclined to be jolted about in a carriage desultorily circling the city's streets, but that was Mrs. Frederic's next order of business, stopping briefly at various establishments, cafés, bakeries, hotels, chatting with the clerks and wait staff and, occasionally, the owners. White, brown, black, they all talked to her, passing on to her whatever they had heard their customers discussing. In the afternoons, Mrs. Frederic dropped in at the businesses she owned. They were small firms, a wholesaler of textiles, a manufacturer of machine parts, and most often she was greeted as the representative for Lewis Frederic, the putative owner. A necessary fiction, Mrs. Frederic sighed, since a woman owning a business outright in the states of New York and New Jersey was not completely unheard of, but an instance still so rare as to raise more problems than it was worth. It was simpler to pay an attorney to create a byzantine series of companies whose parent, ultimately, was L. Frederic, Inc., of which she was the sole shareholder. "Besides," she added, "when the managers complain that their salaries are too small, I can sympathize and concur that Mr. Frederic is an especially hard-hearted businessman."

Helena found the incessant mining of small talk exhausting, so much gravel and waste rock had to be sieved for so few gold nuggets. She much preferred the visits to the businesses. It reminded her of her trips to her family's textile mills and factories with her grandfather. And much as she did then, she followed the workers and examined their processes and their machines. When she identified where improvements could be made, she voiced them to Mrs. Frederic. Eventually she rented part of a warehouse in the shipping district and there she took apart machines to see how they worked and when she put them back together, she made them better, faster, more efficient. At first, Mrs. Frederic took little note of what she called Helena's "strange hobby." But when Helena devised a method - and a tool - for producing twice the number of parts needed for a maker of cookstoves, Mrs. Frederic seized the idea and incorporated it into the factory. Soon the business had jumped far enough ahead of its competitors that other owners were willing to pay to acquire the tool and, thus, "Frederic Wells, Inc." was born, a company vaguely described as an innovator in industrial processes.

As Helena began spending more time away from the mansion, Henry became concerned and before he thought to hire private detectives to follow her, Helena took him to her workshop. "This is my new lover, Henry," she said chidingly as he trailed her, open-mouthed, through the space. "This is why I come home in different clothes than I wore out of the house. They get all sorts of dyes and chemicals spilled on them." He stopped in front of a work bench and picked up one of her latest modifications of a popular small machine used in the production of various ladies' accessories. "I believe you're the Frederic Wells who's putting one of my firms out of business. How much," he demanded, "for the exclusive rights to this?"

She and Mrs. Frederic were no threat to the bigger manufacturers and producers, but they carved a niche for themselves in their limited market, and through the sale of Helena's ideas and inventions, they realized more money than either quite knew what to do with. Henry, amused rather than offended by Helena's "masculine" pursuits, offered investment advice, and Helena wasn't too proud to take it. Her money doubled, tripled, quadrupled over time, and as she searched for additional ways to invest it, Helena began to take a greater interest in businesses in England and Europe, and as she tracked the rise and fall of their fortunes, she couldn't help but notice when news of her family's firm began to be featured more prominently. Helena knew neither her father nor her brother had much liking for business, and as she read articles in which the mismanagement of their textile mills and factories was a common refrain, she suspected that neither had much of a head for business. Competitors too weak to challenge them when her grandfather had been alive were dominating them now, and she thought it likely that one or another of the bigger companies would simply take over the Wellses's factories. For awhile she simply brooded over the almost certain demise of her family's fortune, until she realized she could be the rejuvenator of the family's reputation. Through the auspices of an attorney who was strictly schooled not to reveal her sex or any information about her other than her name and her financial bona fides, she sounded Charles and her father out on their openness to "foreign" investment. When she assured them that the Wells name would remain and that each would retain a voting interest, they welcomed her money and, less agreeably, consented to her stipulations, namely, that she would have the power to hire experienced managers and to direct the growth of the business. Within a few months, C. H. Ramsey became the majority owner of the Wellses's mills and factories.

Although she attended meetings by proxy and communicated with her father and brother through letters and telegrams sent by her attorney, she felt as if she were no farther away from them than she had been as a girl when she had been sent to her bedroom as punishment for some unsuitable adventure or other, riding the horses bareback or swimming nude in the pond on the estate, while they remained in the parlor or library downstairs. She could almost see Christina chatting animatedly at the breakfast table or teasing Charles almost past the point of endurance. She would be nearly eleven now, and though Helena still suffered nightmares about her daughter, during the day, it had become a sweet pain to think about her.

And Helena thought about her often, wondering what she looked like, whom she resembled, what Charles had told Christina about her, if anything. Other than the continuous ache that was Christina, if she wasn't deliriously happy in her life with Henry, she was content. When she remembered her conversation with Leena in her sitting room years ago, which happened infrequently at best, she shook her head at their talk of her loving someone passionately, finding her "lid." She had no need for that now. She had no time for or interest in a lover, and though she and Henry continued to make no promises to the other, she felt owing him some level of fidelity wasn't too onerous a burden. The only hunger that became harder to ignore was the hunger to see her daughter.

She considered spending part of the year in England. She could slowly reintroduce herself to her family and forge some sort of relationship with Christina. So she dreamed and began to plan her return without ever quite acknowledging it to herself.  She didn’t speak of it to Henry since, also without quite acknowledging it to herself, she knew she would be returning to England alone.  There was no room for him in the fantasies she had begun to weave about being reunited with Christina.  Not that she intended to leave him, but he would be part of that necessarily distant life she led in America, a life she would paint in the broadest strokes, no more resembling the life she actually led with him than Louisa’s still lifes had ever resembled the apples and grapes and wine goblets the instructor had placed in front of them.

She had seen Louisa once, more than a year ago now.  She and Henry had been enjoying a summer evening’s stroll in one of the city’s larger parks, and they had moved to the side of the path to allow a family greater access to pass them.  There were five, a little boy no more than three out in front, singing and skipping and looking over his shoulder to ensure that his parents were watching him, a nanny pushing a stroller, and the parents, a stout man, his wife’s hand on his arm, and his eyes on the swaying of the nanny’s hips as she walked ahead of them, and his wife, wisps of strawberry-blond hair trailing from her chignon.   The man managed to tip his hat to them without his eyes ever once leaving the nanny’s hips, and his wife also looked in their direction.  Louisa blanched in recognition, and she stumbled, tightening her hold on her husband’s arm.  He frowned, muttering something in irritation to her, and her face reddened as swiftly as it had paled, but she didn’t look back at Helena.

Henry noticed the change in Helena’s expression, asking her, “Who is she?  You seem to have recognized her.”

“A woman with whom I did charity work a few years ago,” Helena said casually.  “She’s looking well.”  She said nothing more as Henry directed her back onto the path, and hooking her arm around his more securely, she matched his sedate pace, inclining her head toward his as he commented on the well-kept lawn.

Although her plans for trying to reestablish a relationship with her family remained vague, she enlisted the help of an agent in London to inquire about houses to lease or, possibly, to purchase.  She also began to very carefully introduce to Henry her intention to spend part of the year in England, mentioning she wanted to personally inspect some of the business interests she had recently acquired.  He had taken no notice of her first few sallies, but when she actually indicated a time frame for when she might leave – and return – his head flew up from his dinner plate on which he had been sawing at a rather tough cut of beef. 

“I can’t accompany you, Helena, you know that.”  He put his knife and fork down carefully, his eyes taking on the same amber glow as the candles in the candelabra.  Unlike the candles’ glow, it wasn’t a warm one.  “I have to assume you want such a separation.”

She shook her head.  “I don’t want to be separated from you, but I have interests in London to which I need to attend.  Surely you can understand that?”

“You don’t need to stay in London for four months to do it, not if you’ve hired the right people.”  He stared down at his plate before tilting his head and looking at her from underneath the heavy eyelids.  “You want to mend fences with your family.”  He waved his hand back and forth between them.  “I’ve respected your privacy, Charlotte.  I’ve not tried to discover who you are, and I won’t, but don’t lie to me about why you want to make a trip of this length.”  His lips curled in a smile that she knew better than to take for amusement.  “I’ll be the husband too busy with his business to come with you.  Have you invented a name and a profession for me yet?”

“Henry,” she said, her embarrassment greater than her anger, “Henry,” she repeated.

“If they take you back, will you stay?”  He laughed then.  “I suppose you’d have to kill me off in that tale you’ve invented to make it work.  Going back as the rich widow gives you more options.”  He stood, kicking his chair back.  “I’ll be at the club for the rest of the evening.”

They didn’t talk any more about it, but, if anything, she dwelled even more obsessively on a visit to London, and as she inevitably began to drift away from him, her attention and her thoughts centering on her daughter, the more he worked to tether her to him. At first, it was complaints about how often she went to her work shop and how long she stayed there. Then it was requests for her to travel to Washington with him. He didn't want to be apart from her, he said. His demands and her resistance to them spiraled into arguments and soon she began to feel like the proverbial bird in the gilded cage.

One afternoon she returned with Mrs. Frederic to her home. Leena was in the parlor with Josie, teaching her a tune on the piano, and when she saw Helena in the doorway, apprehension flickered over her face. As always, Helena marveled at how quickly Leena perceived her moods, and she watched as Leena urged the girl to continue practicing on her own and then fell into step with her as they passed through the hallway to the kitchen. Mrs. Frederic had put the kettle on and set out three cups. Helena felt a small nervous tremor at announcing her news, but she didn't believe that Mrs. Frederic would find it too upsetting. It wasn't as though she was going to be gone forever.  Not in the least.

"I thought it high time I took a vacation," Helena said lightly, "so I've booked passage to London. I'll be away for a few months."

Mrs. Frederic began to say something, but Leena cut her off, saying abruptly, "You're going to see Christina."

Nonplussed, Helena said, "Yes, I'm going to see my daughter, but I want to repair my relationship with my father and Charles as well."

"Your niece," Leena said firmly. "Christina's your niece."

"That's the family fiction, and I'll abide by it." Helena's voice had acquired an edge and the unspoken "for now" hung heavily in the air.

"Can you?" Leena asked. "Abide by it, that is? You're the one supporting the family now, paying for Christina's lessons. That gives you a tremendous amount of power."

"Do you think I'm that petty?" Helena demanded. "Do you think I would make my family's security a bargaining chip and force them to tell Christina the truth? I will honor the terms of my agreement with Charles."

Mrs. Frederic opened her mouth to interject but closed it at the expression, one of an old anguish, on Leena's face. "You'll want to, Helena, I know that. But you're not returning to be Christina's aunt, you're returning to be her mother."

"Is it so terrible to want to be a mother to her? I can do that without having to have her acknowledge me as her mother."

Leena shook her head. "Another woman, maybe. But not you. You don't live by half-measures, Helena.”  Tiredly she said, "You may be telling yourself it’ll be for a few months, but you’ll want to stay.  To press for more, to reclaim what you gave up.  The memories have never left you, but they’re not her memories, Helena.  The only mother she’s ever known is your sister-in-law, and Christina is her daughter just as much as she’s yours.” 

"I won't hurt either of them, Leena, I promise," Helena said.

"I'm not worried about you hurting Christina. She will feel what she feels for you, no more, no less. But you'll only hurt yourself if you do this now. You won't want to settle for what she can give you." The kettle began to whistle but Mrs. Frederic, transfixed, made no movement to take it off the stove. Tears shone in Leena's eyes. "When I was five years old, I lost my mother when my father sold her. I cried and screamed as they pulled me away from her, and for a long time afterward, every night I promised myself that I would find her. My aunt and my grandmother ended up raising me, and they together became my mother. Tata and Noni were the ones I told my troubles to, the ones who kissed my scrapes and combed my hair. Years later I was reunited with my mother, and she’s a wonderful woman, a beautiful woman, a woman I can see myself in every day, but she isn’t my mother, not really. I love her and look after her." Leena pointed out one of the windows. "She lives just a street or two away. But to this day I don't feel like her daughter, and she knows it. It hurts her that I say 'Mama' but can't mean it as she wants.”

Shaken, Helena said, "I understand your point, Leena, but I can learn to accept what Christina is willing to give me and not ask for more."

"You don't believe me," she murmured. "But I know you, Helena, and this is not your path."

"We make our own paths, that's what I believe. And I will get on that ship next week, and I will sail to London."

Leena firmed her lips and looked squarely at Helena. "You promised," she said evenly. "Five years ago, I asked you to promise me that you would do what Irene and I asked you to do. I told you that you would find it hard to keep that promise and still you promised. I'm asking you to keep that promise now."

Helena looked at her incredulously. "Do what? Go where?"

Mrs. Frederic cleared her throat and crossed over to the stove to lift the kettle from it. In the tense silence that settled over the kitchen, the sound of piano keys being struck dutifully if not accurately emphasized the discord in the air. "I know you question Leena's gift, Miss Wells, but I have learned from bitter experience not to. When she senses an. . . imbalance, I've found it best not to delay in addressing it." She poured hot water from the kettle into each of the three cups. "Leena, get the map."

Helena automatically began steeping her tea, although her mind was whirling between an eleven-year-old girl in London and whatever mission Mrs. Frederic and Leena had for her now. Leena returned with the map and spread it out on the table; she leaned over, hesitant, and then plunged her finger toward the center north of the continent. "It's here, whatever it is."

"It's Dakota Territory, and I suppose you think I should traipse out there to solicit trade secrets from the Sioux or perhaps the Swedish farmers," Helena said sarcastically.

"I don't know what it is Leena senses except that she thinks it's dangerous and she believes that you might be able to put a stop to it." Mrs. Frederic said, squeezing a crescent of lemon over her cup. "You've proven yourself to be resourceful, if impulsive."

Helena only hazily remembered making the promise. "Two months, that's all."

"As long as it takes," Leena countered. "It could be two days, two weeks, or two years."

"Three months and that's it," Helena said. "Because I _am_ going to see my daughter.  After three months, I’m leaving whatever hellish spot you’ve put me in.  What's the nearest point of civilization?"

"It's not on the map," Leena said, "but I believe there's a town called Sweetwater."

Henry took her announcement that she was leaving more quietly than she expected. In an echo of what Leena had said to her, Helena reminded him, "Our terms were that there were no terms. I'm as free to leave as you are to ask me to go. I know you have the money and the means to stop me, but I'm begging you not to."

He would never look small, not with that massive chest and those arms, but he did look old.  He said only, "If it's the right thing to do, why are you crying so hard?"

"Because I'll miss you. I was suffocating, Henry, but I didn't stop caring." She gave him a watery smile.

For the first time that she could remember, he said, "I love you. I would marry you if I could."

"That's not what I want."

"Every woman wants that."

Her smile grew even more watery. "I know you think that, Henry, and that's why I have to leave." 

“Wife or no wife, you’re my heart’s desire.  We are a family, Helena, more than the ones who put you out on the streets.  I’ll be here when you come to your senses.”

The next day she and Leena purchased tickets to Sweetwater. The trip by train would take almost three days. Helena told Leena that she would stay six months but not a minute longer. That had been three years ago.

 


	10. Chapter 10

Helena was late for the Spur again. Another Saturday night, another influx of cowboys flush with cash and eager for a good time. And if her girls were already busy, the hands would take their pent-up energy out on each other. Freddie would be able to make a few of them think twice before starting a fight inside the saloon, pounding the top of the bar with a fist the size of an anvil. But there would be too many for him to keep track of. If she was present, she would be another deterrent. She looked at herself in the mirror; she was wearing one of her favorite dresses, a watered silk the color of jade, but it didn't fit her as snugly as it once had. She had lost weight in recent weeks, and when Leena chided her about her lack of appetite, she blamed it on the heat, but they both knew there was another reason. She frowned at her reflection, no need to dredge up the cause now, or at any other time, frankly; she fingered her earrings and tapped the locket she wore underneath her dress in needless reassurance that it was there.

Hurrying down the stairs, she was halted at the bottom by Leena's calling her name. With no attempt to hide her impatience, she said, "I'm late. Can this wait until tomorrow?"

Leena emerged from the library, a finger keeping her place in the book she held at her side. "Tomorrow you'll find another excuse not to listen to me. You need to talk to her, Helena."

"Talk to whom?" Helena knew it was pettish to act so obtuse, but she was in a hurry to get to the Spur, the late August heat, even at night, was debilitating, and she was nearly crazed by the fact that she couldn't rid her thoughts of Myka Bering. And here Leena was admonishing her for not speaking to her. Of course she wanted to speak to her, it was a struggle every day not to invent some excuse to go down to the  _Journal_ 's office.

Leena didn't rise to the bait. "You need to give Myka some explanation for why you're keeping your distance. She's asked me several times if she's done something to upset you."

"I needn't do any such thing," Helena said with as much hauteur as she could muster, but she evaded Leena's eyes. "She's the daughter of the _Journal_ 's editor, whom I've befriended on occasion as I thought it would be only politic to ensure that the Berings feel welcome in Sweetwater. If Myka's assumed that we've become fast friends as a result, then perhaps this is the best way to disabuse her of that notion."

"Because avoiding her for weeks on end is the kindest form of rejection?" Leena asked sardonically. She put her book down on a table next to the staircase and folded her arms, her expression stern. "You couldn't look at me while you were spouting that bit of nonsense, and I doubt very much that it would convince her." Helena made a show of shifting her feet, but Leena only said, "I'm not finished. Tomorrow is the church social. I think you should attend it. Myka will be there as will all of Sweetwater. No one will think anything of it were you to spend time socializing with her, and it should put some of Myka's fears to rest." In a very Mrs. Frederic-like gesture, Leena raised her eyebrows.

The church frequently sponsored socials, usually to benefit missionary efforts in Africa or farthest Asia, and although Helena thought Africa and Asia would be better off if the church raised money to bring the missionaries back, she realized what was expected of her as one of the town's more prominent business owners, so she donated a minimally acceptable amount and attended the socials only long enough to ensure that her presence was registered and to say a few insincere words to Pastor Wallace, who, with equal insincerity, encouraged her to stay longer. The August social was a different matter altogether. While it was held on the church's grounds, it was more of a communal event, attracting farmers and ranchers from miles outside Sweetwater as well as those Sweetwater residents, few in number though they were, who never otherwise darkened the church's doorstep. Alcohol was prohibited and families tended to hover protectively around their daughters, but the social became something of a bacchanal once the sun went down, and flasks and jugs would appear and the daughters, in the company of their pimply swains, would disappear, and the town would wake up the next morning with a collective hangover. Pastor Wallace would decry the goings-on in the following Sunday's sermon and privately suggest to the town council that the social be held elsewhere, but the location never changed. Despite finding the latter stages of the social boorish and often sobering in their import for the young women wooed beyond the cemetery and into the stand of cottonwoods - there were a number of impromptu weddings occurring between eight and twelve weeks after the social - Helena applauded Sweetwater's sticking of its pagan thumb in the eye of Pastor Wallace and his moralizing.

Applauded, yes, but never so supportive as to actually attend. Helena arched her own eyebrows. "You know I get my fill of drunken citizens at the Spur."

"I'm not asking you to stay until sundown. I'm suggesting that you take an hour, visit with people, and sit with Myka for five minutes." Leena said imperturbably.

"I have nothing to bring. I can't go there empty-handed." It was a weak excuse, but Helena had little else to offer.

"I've baked a pie just for the occasion. It's on the counter, so remember to take it with you when you go tomorrow." Leena's expression softened. "You don't even know what you're fighting against, do you? You want to see her, and, to be honest, I need you and the storm cloud that's been trailing you out of this house for awhile."

Helena hadn't responded, just swept through the front door, but though her exit had been dramatic, she knew it hadn't fooled Leena. She would be showing up at the social tomorrow, pie in hand. As she entered the Spur's main room and surveyed the crowd, she felt the tension in her neck and shoulders lessen. Anywhere there were men and liquor and guns there was risk, but, in the end, it was all about need and the easing of need, and Helena was too experienced in managing the latter to fear an outburst of violence. She much preferred negotiating the men's abstinence-fueled surliness, which could generally be soothed with a promise that the girls would be down soon to attend to them and a drink on the house, if necessary, than trying to sort out her own complicated feelings regarding Myka. Desire generalized was cash in the till; any woman would do. Desire particularized was not transactional, Helena knew to her own increasing discomfort, not to mention surliness, and, thank God, it wasn't in evidence here at the Spur.

The men who saw her removed their hats and nodded, and she caught Freddie's eyes as he wove between customers at the bar. He jerked his head toward the back of the room as a signal that it was fine for her to retreat to her office. She scanned the second floor, all the doors were closed and none of the girls were out, which meant they were busy. As her eyes dropped for one last glance at the room, she saw Warren Bering at one of the gaming tables. He was studying his cards intently, a half-empty bottle of their cheapest whiskey at his elbow. It was hard to see his resemblance to Myka; the eyes were too close together and hooded, the mouth small and thin, like a slot. Sometimes she would see a similarity in the way he looked at things or people, curiously and without judgement like Myka, but the openness wouldn't last long; a cynical disinterest would spread over his face or, like now, when he realized that she was staring at him, his eyes would grow dark with suspicion. Helena waited him out impassively until his eyes cut back to the table, and then she left the room

It was turning out to be a quiet night. So far Freddie had rung the bell only once, to have her handle the complaint of a drunken cowboy who was distressed at having to pay for a half-hour with Sallie when, as he whined to Helena, "I ain't had my fun yet." Helena gave him the options of paying for another half-hour, leaving the saloon without further complaint, or leaving by means of a toss through the swinging doors by Freddie. After Freddie gave him a measured look and flexed his muscled arms, the cowboy staggered through the doors under his own power. Sallie said under her breath to Helena, "He had already got his fun before I could get his pants down." Helena rolled her eyes and said, "Next time let him sober up a little first before you take him upstairs."

That had been two hours ago. It was getting close to the time when Freddie would start ushering the last of the customers out of the Spur or, in the case of their hardcore drinkers, send one of the girls for Sheriff Lattimer. The Spur didn't have a set closing time, but Helena liked to have everyone out by two. Church service started at nine. She yawned and stretched. She had been going over the accounts again; in the last weeks she had made several mistakes, more often than not to the Spur's detriment. The bell rang. She was slowly pushing herself away from the desk when it rang twice more in quick succession. Three times. She fumbled to open the drawer that held the shotgun shells, her heart pounding. This never happened. She loaded the shotgun and hurried out of the office, trying to hide the barrel in the folds of her skirts

There were just four people in the main room. Freddie was behind the bar, his hands flat on its surface, and the other three were standing around a gaming table. One was a white-faced cowboy holding his hands up in surrender, the other two were Warren Bering and Nichols, one of the traveling card sharps who included the Spur on his circuit. Helena caught the glint of a small pistol in Nichols' hand, aimed at Warren Bering's chest. "That's close enough, Mrs. Wells," Nichols said, never taking his eyes off Mr. Bering. "You better drop that shotgun you're carrying by the time I count to three, or I'll plug this old drunk. I been around enough to know that your bartender gave you a signal."

Helena knelt and carefully placed the shotgun on the floor. A derringer was a horrible little gun, except at short distances. "What's the problem here, Mr. Nichols?" she asked as calmly as she could. She didn't like any of the card sharps, but she especially didn't like Nichols. His constant stroking of his facial hair, a neatly trimmed and heavily waxed Van Dyke, was almost as much of an irritant as the fact that he regularly cheated his customers, although most of them were too drunk to realize it. His deceptions were crude and clumsily executed, and it was only going to be a matter of time before someone more sober or aggrieved called him out on them. Unfortunately it had to be Warren Bering, always a bit truculent in his cups, and Helena uncharitably wished that he had passed out hours before, mouth agape on the table, as he not infrequently did.

"The old man seems to think I've cheated him. No one calls me a cheater - not unless he's willing to back it up. Or take it back."

Mr. Bering was trembling, but he was scowling too. "You did cheat. I saw that ace you palmed onto the table when you thought I wasn't looking."

"Mr. Nichols, you know that Mr. Bering is unarmed," Helena said, wishing Myka's fool of a father would take the wise, if unheroic, action of apologizing.

"Don't matter," he said. "He takes it back or I shoot him. Can't have him calling me a cheat. It's bad for business."

The flatness with which he said it suggested to Helena that he meant it. She thought about pointing out to him that were he to shoot Mr. Bering she would grab for her shotgun on the floor and blast a hole in his side, but that would probably only make matters worse. So she turned to Mr. Bering. "Mr. Bering, I will personally see to it that you are repaid in full for any money that you've lost tonight, but I beg you, please do as Mr. Nichols asks."

He shook his head, his jaw set stubbornly, and Helena saw then the unmistakable resemblance between father and daughter. "I won't back down before a cheat, and he's a cheat."

Helena closed her eyes, not seeing a way to defuse the situation, when she heard the doors swing forward and Myka say, "Dad, it's time -." Her voice cut off as Nichols said grimly, "Tell your old man to say he's sorry."

Myka stepped farther into the room. No alarm showed on her face as she recognized that the gambler was pointing a gun at her father. "What does he need to apologize for?"

"Just stay where you are and tell your old man to take it back." Nichols' voice climbed higher with tension.

Helena's mouth grew dry as Myka slowly walked closer to the table, trying to put herself between Nichols and her father. Please, Myka, she silently pleaded, do as he says. "Sorry to have caught you cheating him?" Myka looked tired, but her gaze didn't waver from Nichols. "You can shoot only one of us, you know. So take your pick, a defenseless woman or a defenseless drunk. They'll be singing ballads about your bravery." She had never stopped moving as she spoke, and she was close enough now to put her arm around her father. "Dad, let's go home.”

The color had left Nichols' face and his Van Dyke seemed to have drooped as well, but he kept his derringer trained on Mr. Bering. "I'll shoot him, you stupid bitch, if he doesn't take it back."

She turned her father toward the doors, looking back over her shoulder at Nichols. "You better shoot now, or we'll be out of range in another couple of feet. Of course, once you do, Mrs. Wells over there will pick up her shotgun and shoot you. None of this is worth dying over. My father won't remember a thing about this evening once he wakes up tomorrow, and God knows you didn't win enough money from him to make any of this worth your while. We barely have a pot to piss in as it is."

Helena felt the heat in her cheeks, although she wasn't sure if she was blushing at the unexpected vulgarity of Myka's language or the implication that she didn't pay Mr. Bering enough. She watched helplessly as Myka urged her father toward the Spur's entrance, and he began shambling in acquiescence at her side. Nichols didn't drop his arm, but he didn't fire either. The doors swung close behind them and as Nichols continued to stare after them, Helena reached for her shotgun and aimed it at him.

"You have thirty seconds to take your winnings and leave the Spur before I blast a hole in you big enough to drive a stagecoach through," she said, trying to keep her voice level but anger and relief both shivered through it. "And if you ever come in here again, I'll kill you. Do you understand?"

He nodded, touching the mechanism under his sleeve that retracted the derringer. He took off his hat, held it upside down, and swept the coins and crumpled bills into the crown. He pushed through the doors followed by the cowboy, who only now thought to lower his hands. Helena placed her gun on the top of the bar. "Find Sheriff Lattimer and make sure he understands that he needs to escort Mr. Nichols from Sweetwater first thing tomorrow. . . this morning." Freddie nodded, his eyes still big. "I'll close up."

As he lumbered out from behind the bar, Freddie hesitated. Bashfully he said, "Miss Bering was something, wasn't she?"

Helena couldn't miss the almost worshipful expression on his face. "Yes, something of a fool," she muttered. "She could have just as easily gotten herself or her father killed."

Freddie's eyes grew even larger and his mouth fell open before his confusion cleared. "She's all right, Mrs. Wells," he said gently. "He didn't hurt her."

Helena didn't say anything. She waited until she could no longer hear his heavy tread before she sagged against the bar. But only for a moment. She had to go reassure the girls that it was safe to venture out (thankfully they had remained in their rooms) and she needed to put the cash in the safe in her office. The bar needed to be swept out and the sawdust replaced, but that could all be done later in the day. It took longer to settle the girls down than she had anticipated, and it took several tries to open the safe because her hands still shook so violently that she couldn't fit the key into the lock. But, eventually, she was outside, drawing air deep into her lungs. It smelled stale and caught in her throat, but it was better than breathing the air in the Spur, which had smelled to her mainly of her own fear. She looked toward the comforting solidity of her house, but her feet pointed her in the direction of the  _Journal_ 's office.

She tapped gingerly on the door to the Berings' quarters. They were dark, like the rest of the town, but she didn't care, she needed to see Myka standing alive and whole before her. Her taps became a vigorous knocking until Myka came to the door. "Helena," she said quietly and not a little wearily.

"I wanted to make sure that you were all right," Helena said. There was that telltale quaver in her voice again, but she didn't care.

"I'm fine. Really. You can go home now."

The curtness behind the words was unmistakable, and Helena knew she was being dismissed, but she didn't want to leave. If necessary, she could out-stubborn Myka. Myka's hair was down, and the breeze, what there was of it, was stirring her curls, just a little. Helena yearned to reach out and trail her fingers through the curls, but she pushed the thought away and tried to fix on Myka's eyes in the curved shadow of her face. "You scared me."

"I was scared," Myka admitted, "but it's not the first time I've found someone pointing a gun at my father. It's not always been in a saloon either." She laughed softly, but the laughter held no humor. "You learn to size up situations quickly if you find yourself in them often enough. I felt pretty sure I could call his bluff." She was talking more easily, but she sounded no warmer.

"Pretty sure?" Helena thought that her knees might give way again.

"Nothing's certain. But I found him easier to read than some people." Myka's voice sharpened, and Helena heard the hurt behind the jab.

Helena recognized that she could offer some vaguely worded apology, but apologies were only necessary if one had made a mistake. She didn't make mistakes. Or, she conceded - to the heavens or Mrs. Frederic or whoever kept score of such things - she was trying not to make a mistake this time. She wasn't sorry that she had been keeping Myka at arm's length; it frustrated her and she resented it, but it wasn't a mistake. After that morning in the  _Journal_ 's office with the printer's ointment, when Myka could have had her at her feet with one more touch, and then, later, the encounter with MacPherson, when he had unerringly divined that she was vulnerable where Myka was concerned, it all reinforced her instinct to withdraw, push away. She didn't want to reexperience the vertigo that feeling Myka's fingers and hearing the huskiness of her voice had induced. She had been tumbling down, falling, and she had exulted in the speed of her descent. She could only hope that something was at the bottom of the chasm to catch her, and Myka was a frail net to put her trust in.

Helena heard herself speaking, and she wondered if, despite her misgivings, she was going to apologize because she didn't know what else to do to keep Myka here in front of her, talking. But it was much worse than that. "I was planning to attend the church social. Perhaps you might accompany me?"

Myka's posture changed. She stood up straighter, as if surprised, and she leaned forward, trying to confirm that Helena wasn't teasing her. She must have found her answer because she drew back and restlessly tugged at the ends of her hair. "Uh. . . um. . . I'm already going with Sheriff Lattimer. But thank you for the offer. I guess we'll see each other there."

Of course she was going with Sheriff Lattimer. What a stupid, stupid thing it had been to ask. To think that Myka, at this late date, wouldn't have an escort to the social. As if she had only been waiting for the town's madam to ask her instead. After blundering through empty civilities about keeping Myka up too long and hoping that she would be able to get some rest, Helena turned away from the door. She hadn't made it past the Berings' quarters when Myka said, "We should talk to Charlie Graves about what he overheard about the line to Halliday."

"Charlie Graves is a windbag. I've made the mistake of relying on information he's provided before." Helena relished the return of crispness, of certainty.

"Just because he's cried 'Wolf' 99 times and there hasn't been one doesn't mean that he's wrong the hundredth time."

Helena thought she could hear Myka's jaw set, and she suddenly saw her again in the Spur, confronting Nichols. Jesus God, the Berings were sailing an ill-starred course. She should learn to stay out of their way. "Not that I think he'll say anything useful, but if you're determined to talk to him, you'll probably get more out of him if I'm not with you. He knows all too well what I think of him."

"That's hard to believe," Myka said dryly.

"And, Myka, when you see him, make sure you're wearing the blue gingham. If you don't mind my saying so, it shows your figure off to advantage, and Charlie always appreciates a pretty girl." The dress did show Myka's figure off to advantage mainly because it was old and a little tight on her, but Myka didn't need to hear the latter part. Helena frowned in consideration. Perhaps she ought to pay Mr. Bering more; his daughter could use a new wardrobe.

Lost in imagining how Myka would look in a watered silk dress the color of jade, Helena almost didn't hear Myka's question, soft and disbelieving in the night. "You think I'm pretty?"

It was late and though she was tired, Helena knew enough not to say the first thing on her tongue. With a dispassion she was almost exhausted enough to believe she felt, she said, "I make my living judging how attractive women are. There's no man who wouldn't find you pretty."

"That's good to know." Myka's voice had gone flat, lifeless. "Goodnight, Helena."

Helena had been on the verge of saying, you're lovely, I can't take my eyes off you. But saying that would have required an apology because saying it would have been a mistake - though no less true.

Sunday burned hot and dry and bright. The morning service had ended early, and Sweetwater, after a chance to shake the prayers and sermon from its ears, was collectively hurrying back to the church. Horses drawing buckboards crowded with families kicked up puffs of dust in the street. As Helena watched them through the window, mothers and fathers and children still dressed in their finery and holding picnic baskets, she was increasingly reluctant to join them. There was precious little shade to be found around the church, and Helena envisioned herself drenched in sweat under the relentless sunlight and watching Sheriff Lattimer parading among the townspeople with Myka on his arm. One hour. Fifty-five minutes of exchanging boring small talk with people, who, for the most part, were ill at ease in her company and five excruciating minutes of conversation with Myka spent trying not to see Sheriff Lattimer on the other side of her. She had no choice but to attend the social having told Myka she was planning to attend, and she also had no choice but to take five minutes and talk with her, as Leena had suggested, if only to prove to herself that Myka's deepening relationship with the sheriff was the best possible outcome. For Myka. And for her.

She was wearing a plain navy blue dress. It would be more uncomfortable in the sun than a lighter color, but going to the social was a form of penance anyway, so why seek comfort? Besides, when some child inevitably ran pell-mell into her and left streaks of berry cobbler on her skirts, the stains wouldn't be quite so visible. She walked with dragging steps into the kitchen. On the counter, as promised, was the pie as well as a blanket to spread on the ground to sit on. Despite saying that she wanted the house to herself, Leena was absent, having gone out to pick herbs to replenish her stores. She had become known as a healer since their arrival in Sweetwater, and although the town's doctor routinely warned people against seeking her aid, since she was both more effective and cheaper, she had developed something of a following. People who were embarrassed to be seen talking to her as an equal or encountering her in Helena's presence anxiously reached out to her in private if little Tommy or Susie developed a sniffle. Helena groaned at the unavoidable prospect of chit-chatting with such upstanding citizens, feeling the inevitable headache coming on, and she was more than ready to infuse several cups of tea with Leena's headache remedy or, better yet, add some brandy to the tea. But that would have to wait until she had done her duty.

The church's grounds were filled with people, and the trail of buckboards and buggies along Sweetwater's main street showed no sign of ending. Helena deposited her pie on a table that held other desserts, and holding her blanket and her parasol to her almost as shields and wielding what she hoped was her most charming smile, she engaged the hostiles. A few women actually drew their children closer to them as she passed, but most simply returned her greetings with tiny smiles and an obvious disinclination to engage her in any extended conversation. Their husbands were little better, although Helena recognized many of them as patrons of the Spur. In the relative privacy of the saloon, they loved to bump up or brush against her, their hands trailing along the sides of her breasts or hips, and pass it off with a hearty laugh as an accident, with the less aggressive ones settling for telling her off-color jokes, but in public, among their families and their neighbors, their faces reddened and their innocuous comments about the continuing heat or the drought sounded choked. In less than half an hour she had exhausted her store of polite conversation and hadn't yet spotted Myka; trying to keep her frustration in check, she searched for a patch of ground not already occupied. Preferably one that was on the fringes of the crowd. If worse came to worst, she could wander the graveyard to while away the time. Its presence never dampened the festivities, and the younger children would play games of hide-and-seek behind the gravestones, with their parents making only feeble attempts to chase them from it.

"I thought I saw you!" Claudia ran up to her, her face flushed with the heat. She took Helena's hand and began pulling her down the slope behind the church toward a large area of grass flattened by several blankets. Marta and Liesl were kneeling in front of several baskets, withdrawing plates and cutlery. Artie was sitting on a corner of the blankets, fanning himself with a flyer while Steve was wrestling with a watermelon. In a rare departure for her, Claudia was wearing a dress, although Helena could see trouser hems peeping beneath the skirts. "I witnessed the glorious reception. Are they afraid they're going to turn into pillars of salt if they look at you?"

"I always thought it was God, darling, who turned poor Lot's wife into salt." Helena grinned down at Claudia.

"What, false modesty? I think I've heard you claim God-like powers more than once." Claudia plopped onto the blankets. Helena more gracefully took a seat, coolly acknowledging Marta's and Artie's less than enthusiastic greetings. Steve smiled at her as he lowered the watermelon into a large bucket of water. He flicked water at Claudia, who squealed and grabbed Helena's arm.

Grunting, Artie pushed himself up from the blankets. Adjusting his spectacles, he squinted at Claudia. "I think I'm going to walk around for a bit. Stay out of trouble." With a warning glare at Helena, he pushed the spectacles back onto his nose and stiffly began to trudge up the grass toward the church.

"He's sparking the Widow Calder," Claudia stage-whispered to Helena. "She's supposed to meet him here today. Did you see how giddy he was acting?"

"Ah, yes, practically bubbling over with joie de vivre," Helena said. "Such a change from how he normally behaves."

"I heard that," Artie shouted.

Marta silently handed a plate to Claudia, Helena, and Steve. Helena attempted to hand hers back and was met with a steely look. "C'mon," Claudia said, bounding to her feet. "I want to get some warm potato salad and tough corn on the cob before it all runs out." She pointed at Liesl, who was sitting demurely next to Marta. "You too. Marta can be on ant patrol while we're gone." After an exchange of glances with her aunt, Liesl took a plate and joined them.

As Claudia ran up the hill, challenging Steve to race her, Helena fell into step with Liesl. While she felt bedraggled and slick with perspiration, Liesl seemed to glide through the heat, only the faintest tinge of red to her cheeks and her hair, turned white gold by the sun, remained immaculately swept up. The resemblance to Monika was astonishing, with none of the small differences in features or height that would make the likeness closer to that of a younger sister. This was Monika before whatever events or choices had led her to Mrs. Sloan's, and the dreams that Monika had indulged in of marrying dukes or performing on stage, which Agnes had mocked so many years ago, seemed not fantastic at all, but only a chance encounter away from being realized. Aware of Helena's attention, Liesl smiled at her, not flirtatiously or suggestively, but with warmth and good humor, and it was still a dazzling smile. But Helena felt no quivering, no desire to see that smile become more than it was. It wasn't only that the smile was open and friendly and communicative of nothing more than an appreciation of Helena's presence, which made Liesl so unlike Monika, but that even if her smile had confirmed she was Monika somehow reborn, dropped into Helena's life as if to tantalize her with the hope that some mistakes could be undone, Helena would have responded no differently. Monika would never have been Myka. And that was how she knew, for all the times that she had jeered at Leena's foretelling of her future, that Leena, and, well, her nanny, too, had been right.

It wasn't welcome knowledge, and Helena tried to banish it by engaging Liesl in light conversation about doings at the Donovan ranch. They came to the crest of the hill and followed the sound of Claudia's loud, bright laughter to tables that were in danger of developing a swayback under the weight of all the food that had been brought. "I want to thank you again, Mrs. Wells," Liesl said, almost shyly, "for suggesting that I work with Myka on my English. She's a wonderful teacher." Another smile and a sincere glance from blue eyes that were depthless in their clarity. Then the eyes narrowed, the smile broadened, and Liesl was enthusiastically waving her hand.

Helena turned and saw Myka with Sheriff Lattimer among the townspeople drifting toward the food tables. Myka recognized Liesl and lifted her hand in acknowledgment. Her eyes shifted and took in Helena at Liesl's side. The smile that had flowered on her face at Liesl's wave began to wilt at the edges, as if ready to fold back in on itself, but Myka straightened and aggressively hooked her arm around the sheriff's. Startled, he grinned at how closely she was holding him to her and, seeing where she was staring, he waved at Helena and Liesl. Helena didn't wave back but forced a slight smile. She was ready to retreat to the Donovan encampment, but Liesl stopped her. Liesl's smile was gone and there was a tightness about her mouth that Helena hadn't seen before. "It would be impolite not to eat something, yes?"

Bewildered by the change in Liesl's attitude and conscious now that the dull throb at her temples had become a steady pounding, Helena had time only to nod before Liesl was rather insistently urging her into line. She fell in behind a group of children, who alternately pawed at the offerings or whiningly asked what they were. All of it, the baked beans, the biscuits, the slabs of ham, the bowls of sliced tomatoes and cucumbers, looked sticky or dried out, and everything was covered by a cloud of flies. But she didn't protest when, with a grim command that spoke of Marta's tutelage, Liesl spooned food onto her plate. Helena tried not to look at the mounds of food and followed Liesl as she marched at a quick pace, not down the hill as Helena expected, but to a scant space between two families and against a border row of shrubs, which were shrunken and brown. Awkwardly and reluctantly lowering herself to the ground, hoping not to tip her plate too much to one side or the other or slump back against the prickly branches of the shrubs, Helena looked questioningly at Liesl. But Liesl's gaze was fixed on something across from them, and Helena found if she leaned to her left, she could spot between a gap in the crowd Myka and Sheriff Lattimer standing next to another young couple. The woman on Helena's right, noticing Helena's shifting, clutched her toddler daughter closer, and Helena had to bite her tongue not to say, "She's a little too young yet to have her start at the Spur," and said, stiffly, instead, "A lovely afternoon." The woman perhaps smiled, perhaps grimaced - it was difficult to tell - and Helena pushed her plate behind her and studiously looked anywhere but at Myka.

Because she was beautiful. The dress looked new, a green the color of sea foam, and it fit her perfectly, emphasizing her long lines. The unruly hair, which always defeated Myka's attempt to keep it up, glinted red in the sun, and as she tilted her head back in laughter at something the sheriff said, the delicate arch of her throat reminded Helena of the elegant curve of a swan's neck, and she had a similar impulse to stroke it. Liesl wasn't eating either, and she seemed unaware of the admiration she was attracting from the men, married and unattached. Several had recrossed the grass in front of them for no other purpose, it appeared, than to stare at her; more than a few hesitated in front of them with the barely repressed excitement of competitors in a race. If Liesl had murmured that she would like a glass of lemonade, Helena wouldn't have been shocked if half the male population attending the social ran to the tables where pitchers of lemonade and water sweated in the sun. But Liesl had eyes only for Myka and her escort. Although Helena found the sheriff's taste for pranks and jokes when he had time on his hands - which was often in a town like Sweetwater - annoying, she could admit that he was a handsome man. Certainly he was better husband material than most of the other bachelors in and around Sweetwater; he was young (enough), he had steady work, and, if his attentions to Myka were any indication, he was a devoted suitor. Objectively Helena could understand why a young woman like Liesl would be interested in Pete Lattimer, just as Myka apparently was. Then the sheriff left Myka's side to wind his way to the table holding the pitchers, and Liesl's eyes didn't follow him. She continued to look at Myka, and Helena saw her own longing mirrored in Liesl's face.

Helena feared for a moment that she might laugh at the sad comedy of it, their mutual brooding over Myka's preference for someone else, but she bit her lip and plucked at a clump of grass next to her knee. It felt brittle between her fingers, and she dusted her hands against her skirt. She touched something that felt warm and thick. Inspecting her skirt, she found a streak of apple butter, and she sighed, holding out her skirt and fruitlessly dabbing at it. Leena would be in favor of trying to remove the stain, Helena would be in favor of burning the dress, considering how the day was turning out so far. She watched the crowd, avoiding looking in Myka's direction. Claudia was moving along the food tables for what had to be the second time, and, farther away, Artie was gazing soulfully into the Widow Calder's face as she cut his meat into bite-sized pieces. On the periphery, James MacPherson stood under the limited shade provided by the overhang of the church's roof, smoking a cheroot. His gaze intersected with Helena's, and he looked at her steadily, she would have sworn unblinkingly, until, with a smile more like a tic at the corner of his mouth, he walked out of her field of vision.

The afternoon dragged on, and Helena marked the passing of the hours less by the position of the sun and more by the incremental diminishing of the heat. She and Liesl had long since given up their patch of ground to return to the area where Claudia and Steve arm wrestled on the blankets and Marta gently snored with her head propped against a picnic basket. The only thing Helena had eaten all afternoon was a slice of watermelon, and even that rested uneasily on her stomach. She had stayed much longer than she had intended, but she had not yet had her five minutes with Myka. She had caught glimpses of her, chatting with townspeople, good-naturedly allowing a little girl to thread dandelions through her hair, always with Sheriff Lattimer at her side. Liesl had seemingly had enough of brooding, eventually joining a group of German farmers and their wives, and bits of their conversation floated across the grass, mainly talk of the weather and worries about their harvests from what Helena could decipher. Stretched out on the blankets, her hand cupping her head, she heard the crunch of feet on dry grass and looked up to see Myka towering over her.

Claudia scrambled to sit up and patted the blanket next to her. "Myka, join our merry pirate crew." Jerking her thumb at Helena, she said, "We're about to make her walk the plank. She's being a most uncooperative hostage."

Myka stepped over Helena without looking down at her and sat down beside Claudia. "She is difficult, isn't she?" Myka said it with a playful sigh, but the note of exasperation was real.

Her hair was almost completely free of its knot, cascading down her neck and onto her shoulders. Helena had never before thought that being unable to run her fingers through someone's hair could be experienced as a physical pain, but she was feeling it now. "Where's Sheriff Lattimer? I've seen more space between Siamese twins than the two of you," she grumbled.

Claudia frowned, sending her a warning glance. "Silence, swabby, or we'll feed you to the sharks." She nudged Helena's shoulder with a stockinged foot. "Oh, don't mind Miss Crabby Pants. She's been unhappy since her new best friend left her to play with others." Claudia gestured to where Liesl was sitting with the farmers' wives.

Myka looked over at Liesl and then turned her cool gaze on Helena. "I remember when we were out at the ranch that you seemed quite taken with her. I guess you're not lacking at all for company at the social."

"So, when are the banns going to be published for you and the good sheriff? People will come away from this event thinking you're practically engaged," Helena said with a light mockery that caused Myka to blush. She raised herself up to a sitting position and smiled sweetly. "In fact, shouldn't he be stumping down here about now, playing his lyre and rescuing you from Hades?"

"Would his music charm you into releasing me?" Beyond the sarcasm, something more wounded laced through Myka's voice, and Helena closed her eyes, telling herself to stop.

"Hard as it is to imagine anything charming about him, I suppose I would have to. Orpheus can't bear to be parted from his Eurydice, and she him. That's how the story goes, am I right, Myka?" She slowly fluttered her eyes open, and they danced away from the wistfulness of Myka's pale green gaze.

Myka's face hardened, and she looked over at Liesl once more. "You do have Persephone, after all."

"Yes, I do have Persephone," Helena repeated, mindlessly tugging at a stray string of the blanket.

Putting her hands to her head, Claudia complained, "What is going on with the two of you? Next time use pistols at twenty paces. There'll be less bloodshed. Jinksy, why don't you cut another slice of watermelon for Helena?" She put her head close to Helena's ear and hissed, "Be nice, or I’ll dump the tub the watermelon was in over you."

Myka touched Claudia's knee. "I should go. I just stopped by to say hello." She pushed herself up, stepping around Helena as she crossed the blankets. She hesitated, then leaned down, saying softly just above Helena's head. "Don't worry, lyre or no lyre, I won’t look back."

True to her word, Myka climbed back up the hill, holding her head high and rigidly forward. Liesl, belatedly realizing that Myka had been in the vicinity without the sheriff, jumped to her feet with a lightness and grace that Helena assumed could belong only to those who embraced their feelings for another rather than stuffed them into a trunk and hurried after her. Slamming a plate with watermelon in front of Helena's feet, Claudia said, "I'm the only one who can get away with being rude and that's because I'm young and most people think I'm strange anyway. You, on the other hand, can't afford to be rude because you don't have many friends. Leena and me and Myka at last count. Maybe only me and Leena now."

"I don't know," Steve said musingly. "Artie can be pretty rude."

"It's not rudeness with Artie. It's just who he is. If Artie wasn't rude, I'd be worried," Claudia answered. Refocusing her attention on Helena, she said, "But I know you can be sweet and charming and downright adorable, so that's why I don't understand why you were mean to her. You should go apologize to her. I'm serious here, get up and find her and apologize. And tell Liesl that she shouldn't be trying to coax a lesson out of her at a social." Throwing her hands up in the air, she exclaimed. "It's called a social for a reason. People are supposed to be sociable."

Helena did get up, witn no intention of finding Myka but wanting to escape Claudia's affectionate hectoring of her. Three minutes of conversing with Myka had devolved into childish digs at one another; she didn't want to find out what an extra two minutes would lead to. She would go home. Now. But with the sun sinking toward the horizon, the men who had been too self-conscious about being seen with her earlier in the day were pulling her aside to ask whether the vice tax would result in an increase in prices or to suggest she hire more girls or to inform her that the saloon in Halliday had added a piano player. Removing one older man's hand from a place on her arm perilously close to her breast, she found herself scanning the groups of people who remained, half-hoping she would see Myka among them. But they were young men and women eagerly waiting for the sun to set, arms beginning to loop around each other's waists. Two men were playing fiddles and children, the few who were allowed to remain out this late, were jumping, joyfully and uncoordinatedly, in a circle around them. Other men, who had sent their wives and children home, squatted against the side of the church, passing a jug back and forth and boldly staring at any woman who was foolish enough to be unaccompanied.

Such as she was. Helena met their unabashed ogling with a glare. Rather than running the gauntlet of their looks and the innuendoes that they would say only half under their breaths, she would take the path behind the church, which went past the graveyard and around the stand of cottonwoods. She could cut across the fields toward her house. She might encounter a couple or two slipping into the trees, but they would all pretend that they hadn't seen each other. Twilight had thickened, and she stumbled over rocks worn bare in the path, the gravestones on her left looking not eerie but forlorn in the increasing gloom.

As she passed the cottonwoods, she heard voices close by, whispering, laughing softly. The woman's voice sounded familiar and, without even fully realizing why she was doing it, Helena edged around a trunk. In the clearing in front of her, Sheriff Lattimer was pressing Myka against a tree, his hands on her hips. His lips were on her neck, and it was arched like it had been so many hours ago when Helena had yearned to stroke it. A twig may have snapped in two under Helena's foot or, with the sensitivity lovers have to interruptions, Myka may have sensed another's presence. Her head lifted and her eyes met Helena's as the sheriff mumbled a protest. With a deliberateness that kept Helena transfixed, Myka touched his chin, her eyes not leaving Helena's face, and he obediently covered Myka's lips with his own. Helena watched as Myka pressed into him, her arms circling around his back, and then she spun away from the trees, walking unsteadily across the fields toward home.

The back door opened and after a few seconds was quietly closed. A procession of squeaking floorboards until Leena stood in the entrance to the library. Helena found it more difficult to focus on Leena than she had anticipated; her head, lolling against the back of the chair, was slow to straighten, and her eyes didn't want to work together.

Leena pointed to the drink in Helena's hand. "How many of those have you had?"

"Someone who liked smart remarks might say not enough." Her words didn't sound slurred to her ears but they did sound more British. She had indulged in several brandies to distance herself from thoughts of the social, but apparently she had drunk enough to put an ocean between her and the memory of Myka kissing the sheriff. "I blame it all on Henry. He taught me to appreciate a fine brandy." She drew her robe tighter around her. Purely a reflexive action in front of the woman who knew her every nook and cranny, inside as well as out. "Don't tell me you can pick herbs in the dark. Even you're not that good."

Leena came into the library and sat in a chair across from Helena. Lamps had been lit, but not many, and Helena sat in the shadows behind her desk. "Mrs. Lundquist sent for me. One of her children became sick after the social. Just a simple case of overeating. What's your excuse?"

Helena didn't answer her. "Do you remember that I said six months? And it's been, what, three years?"

"Something like that," Leena said cautiously. "I've wondered why you stayed."

"You said until the job was done, balance restored, some balderdash like that." Balderdash. Now there was a word only copious amounts of alcohol could pry out of her. "It took us over a year to figure out what or, rather, who the problem was. And then James MacPherson is not Elizabeth Sloan, an old whore no one was willing to risk anything for, and I can't use Henry's name to scare people." Since her glass, still half-full, was dangling from her fingertips, Helena decided to spare her rug and finished the brandy. "Besides, you were right as you always are. I wasn't ready then to go back to London. I would have made a mess of it."

"And you are now? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

Helena reached over to pick up the picture of her family. She traced the outline of her daughter's form. She had eventually written to Charles, a brief, stiff letter summing up the past ten years of her life in a couple of sentences, describing her relationship with Henry Tremaine as "several years employed as a secretary to a prominent man of industry." No mention of the family business or the fact that she now owned it, no mention of Christina other than a generic "I trust that my sister-in-law and niece are doing well." Charles had written back, a somewhat longer letter but no less stiff, informing her of the health of their parents and providing news of other family members. He didn't encourage her to visit and didn't close his letter with anything more affectionate than "Your brother, Charles," but a year later Helena had received the photograph in the mail. No note was attached. She wasn't sure whether to accept it as some kind of peace offering or a statement that her family was whole without her, but she framed it and put it on her desk. "No. She's almost a young lady, you know. They often don't want mothers at that age, but aunts may be acceptable." The smile she shot Leena was teasing and sad and a little drunken, all mixed together.

"What happened at the social?" Leena asked gently. "What upset you?"

Helena felt the smile slip from her face but she said as casually as she could, "Nature taking its course, my dear Leena, that's all." She stood up, swaying only slightly. She had taken a long, cool bath once she was home, hoping that she could merely wash the social from her. But it had clung to her, not so much the sight of Myka kissing the sheriff among the cottonwoods, but that more painful recognition when she had looked at Liesl, seeing only Monika in her face, and known that what she felt for Myka was something she had never experienced before. How ridiculous, how laughable, really, to have been what she was, to have aroused so many different sensations in so many others, and yet to have remained so untouched herself that when a woman with hair that she couldn't discipline for the life of her and an innocent fearlessness that was a danger to herself and everyone around her came to town, she was reduced to nothing more than a child's expectant hopefulness.

The Wellses were rational. Helena's parents had married because it was in the best interests of their families to do so. While her father might have given his devotion to his hounds and his club and her mother to Charles and their homes, both would laugh at the idea that they might have overlooked the one whom each was meant for. A bastardized Platonic concept, which held that everyone had his soulmate, would earn only their contempt. Mere claptrap. It was the same illogic that had little girls vowing to marry their dolls or ponies. To take her nanny to task, lids and pots were mass produced, and any one lid would fit any one pot. Helena had the example of her parents and her own experience to support her position, which was that no one individual was any more interesting or worthy or important than any other. The few times she had tentatively begun to believe otherwise, with Monika and Louisa and Henry, she blundered so badly that she hadn't found the more or less enforced celibacy of her time in Sweetwater any burden at all.

Until Myka. And then little girl dreams of marrying princesses (or ponies) made sense in a way that owed nothing to logic. It was believing that a lid in the Sandwich Islands and a pot in Siberia could be paired only with each other and hoping that someway, somehow the two could be brought together. It was proof against argument and sarcasm, of which Helena had an endless supply. But she couldn't let herself concede to it. She was still enough of a Wells to demand evidence that Myka felt the same before admitting defeat. Only that evidence wasn't forthcoming.

"Did you know when you first saw her?" Helena asked into the quiet of the room. "You told me you would."

Leena said, "It's only important when you knew. You knew today, didn't you?"

Helena sank onto the desk, a slipper hanging off her foot. "Leena, she's a woman who would think a Boston marriage is a marriage that took place in Boston."

"I don't know about that," Leena said, laughter bubbling between her words. "She found your secret collection." She pointed to the corner bookshelves that held slim, untitled volumes full of graphic drawings and very few words. "I've seen her leafing through them when she thought I wasn't looking." She added more seriously, "Whatever you saw today or thought you saw, it may not be what it seemed."

"Despite what you think the future showed you, Leena, I'm not the one destined for her." Helena slipped off the desk and was very proud that she traveled almost the entire length of the room and only stumbled once, against a chair she then clutched for support. "I think I'll go down to the ranch tomorrow. I haven't ridden Dantes in ages, and then after some time there, I'll go to New York and look in on my investments."

"Don't run away, Helena. It won't change things." Leena rested her chin on her arm and looked over the back of her chair at her friend. "You think I see the future in terms of faces and dates and events, as if it were a series of dioramas passing before my eyes. When I say I see patterns, I mean exactly that. Lines and shapes constantly moving and intersecting, and most of the time I don't know whose they are. To be honest, sometimes I don't know what they mean. But yours, it's been like a flame in the dark, Helena. I could trace it in my sleep." And Leena began moving her finger in the air, drawing loops that eventually broadened into waves. "And there's always been another pattern intertwined with yours. For a long time I thought it was your daughter's, but it became stronger the surer I became that we were needed here.”

"Have you ever thought that it might be yours?" Helena asked, standing half in the library, half in the hallway and steadying herself against a tendency to list by bracing her arm against the wall.

"Hmmm, I should have said  _very_  intertwined. We're many things to each other, Helena, but we're not destined to be lovers." In the amber glow of the library's lamps, Leena's eyes were dark pools, and Helena couldn't tell whether she saw relief or regret in them.

Helena looked up the staircase to the second floor and pictured the overabundance of pillows on her bed with eagerness. She wanted to rest her aching, spinning head on them for at least an eternity. "I had greater faith in your abilities when I thought you waved your hands over a crystal ball," she said. Her tone was wry but fond as well. She winced as another image from the social flashed in her mind. She would scream, she would, if it was one of Pete Lattimer. But the dark eyes were both too cold and too malicious to ever be the sheriff's. MacPherson. How he had stared at her from his vantage point underneath the church's roof, how he had enjoyed making her squirm as he talked about Myka in her office.

The brandy fog began to lift. "You need to look out for her while I'm gone. I've pushed MacPherson too hard recently. He knows I . . . care about her, and he's not above striking out at her to get at me."

Leena's solemn "I will" followed Helena as she made her way up the stairs, cautiously, like the 105-year old woman she felt was. She stopped on the next to last step. "Can you explain to me why your patterns can tell you that I would meet my beloved in this godforsaken town or that the devil incarnate has risen in the person of James MacPherson and yet not reveal something practical, like the fact that I forgot everything I brought with me to the social?

Leena laughed and Helena stood on the step listening to it. She could wish that it was Myka downstairs laughing with such affection, but wishing to make things so was the province of the innocent and the powerful. She had never been the one and, her boasts to the contrary, she wasn't the other. The warmth of a friend's laughter at the end of a very long, unhappy day was a small thing to hold onto, but it was a good small thing.

 


	11. Chapter 11

Myka inched along the sofa and touched his knee, just two fingers, lightly, nothing more than that. She wasn't going to squeeze it or caress it; she didn't want to be too encouraging, not in the sense he was likely to take it. The touch, a smile, shy with a hint of coyness, and, finally, the look, from underneath fluttering eyelashes, admiring, a little helpless. Feeling that this was requiring more coordination than she possessed, Myka hoped nothing was freezing in place; the touch, the smile, the look, all needed to be fluid, synchronous, creating the illusion that she was dependent on him to illuminate her, to impart to her his knowledge of the workings of men.

Charlie Graves didn't disappoint. Leaning in, his gaze dropping to the swell of her breasts, emphasized by the pull of the faded blue and white checks across her chest, he said, "I'm not the fixture I was up in Bismarck, but I still have some friends there. They're not having to blow dust off my name yet." His smile, basking in the appreciative glow of hers, broadened with self-satisfaction. "What do you need to know, my dear?"

At that moment, his sister, their de facto chaperone, entered the cramped parlor, wiping her spectacles on her apron and peering suspiciously, if near-sightedly, at Myka, and grumbled, "Is she staying for lunch? If so, I'll have to make up another plate."

Without turning to look at his sister, thereby allowing Myka's fingers to remain on his knee, he said peevishly, "I don't know. Let me ask her." The watery brown eyes dipped down again for another look, and one of his hands seemed to rise automatically to pat thinning gray hair. "My dear Miss Bering, would you do us the great honor of taking lunch with us?"

The admiring, helpless smile, toward which Mr. Graves had raised his face like a sunflower, became sorrowful, and Myka, cringing only inwardly, allowed a third finger to descend upon his knee. "While I would like that very much, Mr. Graves, my father expects me back at the  _Journal_. Given your wealth of knowledge and your many friends in the legislature, I'm convinced that you'll know the answer and then I can leave you and Miss Graves in peace." She jumped a little at the derisive snort from Miss Graves and her fingers momentarily lifted, but he had no sooner bent a withering look at his sister than Myka's fingers were back on his knee. "I understand that you may have some important information about the railroad spur to Hannaford. Is it true that plans have been finalized for the line?"

There was a risk in appearing too ignorant. She wanted to make a mistake so obvious that Mr. Graves would feel obliged to correct her but not to seem so out of her depth that he would dismiss her with a patronizing suggestion that they should talk about the line at a time when her father was present. But at her mention of the branch line, Mr. Graves paled, his smile dimmed, and he moved his knee so that her fingers were brushing air. "I believe you mean Halliday, Miss Bering, and I know very little about that business."

Myka wished then that Helena had accompanied her. She would know how to get Mr. Graves talking again, her opinion that he was an old windbag serving as a fillip to their interaction. She had a way of making men find even her disdain of them alluring. Myka's disdain, on the hand, would be felt as disdain; she knew no trick, had no skill to make it another form of flirting. And she feared she was on the verge of revealing her impatience with Mr. Graves. Unlike Helena, Myka didn't have men flocking to her. Attracted by how lovely she looked, they were put off by how she seriously she behaved. All but Sam. He had found her refreshing, or so he said, because she was straightforward and direct with him, so unlike other women. She wanted to be appreciated for her intelligence rather than her appearance, but her appearance was the more effective tool, she had discovered. Until mere prettiness wasn't enough to charm a man, as was rapidly becoming clear with Mr. Graves. She needed something more to encourage him to disregard his fear of James MacPherson, but she had nothing reflexively flirtatious, instinctively "feminine" to fall back on.

Without being aware of it, she was flushing, and her hands, freed of the obligation to flutter about Mr. Graves, were worrying the material of her dress in irritation at her failure. Preoccupied with how she could save the situation, her voice was softer and more hesitant when she asked him, "Are you sure, Mr. Graves?," than it was when she was trying to play the coquette. Suddenly clearing his throat and squaring his rounded shoulders, Mr. Graves firmed his features, which, dominated by his pouchy cheeks and an overbite, tended to resemble those of the smaller, plant-eating mammals. "I had no idea, my dear, that you had hung your hopes on any information I might have. It's hardly chivalrous of me to leave a 'damsel in distress,' as you might say."

Myka, realizing her very real sense of helplessness had reinspired Mr. Graves, directed an especially piteous look at him and in a near-whisper commended his heroism. "I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you're willing to share any information at all about the branch line." Before he could retreat, she hastily added, "All of Sweetwater will be grateful to you and unless you prefer otherwise, you'll remain an unsung hero in my father's article, your identity as a source of crucial information protected."

At the words "article" and "source," Mr. Graves paled again, but Myka, discovering wiles that she hadn't known she possessed, graced him with a tremulous smile and gripped his knee, not in the least flirtatiously but as if he were the only thing between her and being swept out to sea. She could reassure him that the article would likely never be written, let alone published, since her father's interest in pursuing the question of the branch line with the council members had flagged. But she also didn't want him to wonder why she was asking about Halliday and the line if not for the _Journal_. So she remained silent as he shook out a handkerchief from a vest pocket and blotted his perspiring brow. Sighing heavily, as though to underscore the trouble he was inviting on her behalf, Mr. Graves said, "This is what I can tell you about the line being moved to Halliday. . . . "

Leaving his home some twenty minutes later, Myka debated whether she should drop by the Spur to inform Helena of what she had learned or continue to use Leena as a go-between. Helena's alternation between drawing her closer and withdrawing had confused her, enraged her, and wounded her, sometimes simultaneously. In comparison, Sam had been a novice in stirring her up. His goal had been a simple one, to seduce her, and on some level, she had always known that was his reason for courting her, even when he was the most ardent about their future together. Helena's motives were murkier, although in the  _Journal_ 's office the morning of their visit to the Donovan ranch, Myka could have sworn that Sam's and Helena's desires were one and the same.

Perhaps what was most confusing, most enraging, most wounding was the fact that had Helena attempted to take her in her arms that morning, just as Sam had so many times before, she wouldn't have resisted, she realized now. In fact, she would have welcomed it. She was aware of what women who were intimate with other women were called, and if she had been unsure about the mechanics of that intimacy, those books in a dark corner of Helena's library had enlightened her. But as soon as Myka become convinced that she understood why Helena would trace with her eyes, covertly, yet at the same time slowly, lazily, as if she were daring Myka to catch her doing it, the shape of her mouth or the length of her legs, Helena would the next day, sometimes the next instant, act as if Myka were no more to her than, well, the daughter of the _Journal_ 's editor.

Myka had been just the "editor's daughter" for so long now, seeing Helena only briefly when she would stop by the _Journal_ 's office to discuss something with her father and receiving, at most, a curt 'Hello' and a nod of Helena's head, that she had been shocked into speechlessness when Helena asked her to accompany her to the social. When she had opened the door to see Helena standing there, her face white and strained with worry, the dark eyes restlessly skimming over her as if she couldn't quite believe that Myka was all right, Myka had wanted to hold her tight, to absorb the tension holding Helena so stiff and rigid that Myka was afraid she might crack.

But the anger and hurt of the past weeks were lodged solidly in Myka's chest, and her arms crossed themselves over it, hugging her resentment to her instead. Her feet planted just inside the doorstep, she acted as though she rescued her father on a daily basis from irate, gun-toting men when, really, it had happened only twice before and one of those times had involved a 90-year-old subscriber, furious about an editorial, whose gun was a rusted relic from the War of 1812. Helena seemed to be listening, but Myka wasn't sure whether she was listening to her or some inner voice, because, after a slight shake of her head, Helena had asked her.

Myka's heart had leapt up her throat, or perhaps it was just a "Yes" that was building for a rush at the barrier of her grimly pressed lips, but she had already accepted Sheriff Lattimer's offer to escort her to the social, if for no other reason than to exchange the stifling heat inside for the stifling heat outside, made somewhat more bearable by the fact that her father wouldn't be only a few feet from her, groaning and swearing his way through another hangover. To cover over the awkwardness, she had asked about Charlie Graves. Talking to him had been on her mind, especially since the story on Joshua Donovan had raised no new information, but she had been hoping for a more propitious time than the early morning hours and not just after a gambler had threatened to shoot her father. Helena, if not convinced of the usefulness of talking to him, hadn't protested, and then, the unexpected invitation fresh in her mind, Myka had made the mistake of pressing for more from her, an acknowledgment that Helena was drawn to _something_ about her, and like that, the air grew colder between them and Myka felt the frost of her reply.

The next morning, Myka's thoughts had been only of Helena. The new green dress, which she had hired the town's milliner to make for more money than the Berings' budget could afford and which was too nice to mistreat by subjecting it to the multifold dangers of a picnic, taunted her from its peg. The milliner had told her the color would bring out the red in her hair and deepen the green of her eyes, and Myka, the sea-green cotton unspooling from the roll and spreading out over the cutting table like the incoming tide, had been lost. She hadn't intended to buy a dress that day, but the day had been one when she went to Helena's home hoping to see her, returning a book she had borrowed two days before and hadn't yet read but returning it gave her an excuse to go up that walk again, to knock on the door, and hope that, beyond Leena's welcoming face, she might catch a glimpse of black hair or hear that voice, which could be so clipped and cool one minute and warm with amusement the next. But Leena had opened the door before Myka could knock and shaken her head before Myka could ask, and Myka didn't even pretend she was there to return the book, she had only asked with an injured bewilderment, "How have I wronged her?"

After church, she put on the dress and when Sheriff Lattimer came to take her to the social, he had put his hands in front of his eyes as if it hurt to see her, saying "Your beauty blinds me, milady," and she had laughed at his joke, which wasn't all that much of a joke because she knew he meant it. He was proud to be escorting her, she could tell, his smile wide and his greetings so bright and cheery that they verged on the ludicrous. Myka's greetings were more muted, her eyes already searching for Helena. After dropping off her contribution, a pan of overbrowned rolls, they had wandered the church's grounds, Sheriff Lattimer always chatting, always teasing the children, who would bump against their legs as they pursued each other in games of tag and hide-and-seek.

Then suddenly Helena was there, and Myka couldn't help but grin and barely caught herself before she pirouetted. Helena's comment about her prettiness still rankled, a compliment, yes, but offered so distantly and impersonally that Myka had felt it more as an insult. But seeing her in this dress, Helena would have to show her appreciation. Myka's grin broadened until she glimpsed the woman at Helena's side. The dust and the noise couldn't mar Liesl's blond perfection. The skirts of her dress were frayed and her shoes were too workman-like for it, but she wore the faded cotton with an elegance that made Myka feel, for all the loveliness of her own dress, that she was still a gawky adolescent, ill at ease in grown-up clothes. From their tutoring sessions, Myka knew that Liesl was as appealing on the inside as she was on the outside, having a lively mind and a surprisingly sly sense of humor; no wonder Helena was entranced with her.

So Myka had kept the sheriff constantly moving throughout the day, trying to ensure that as many as people as possible were between her and Helena. Yet she never completely lost sight of her. A gap in the crowd would form and there Helena would be, with Liesl, and it was virtually impossible for Myka not to look at them. They were striking together; while Liesl's was the more dazzling, Helena's beauty was the more complex, a contrast of coloring and complexion married to a queenly reserve. Noticing how frequently her eyes went to them, the sheriff trapped her hand between his. "You're the prettiest girl here. As far as I'm concerned, the only girl here." Caught between wanting to shake such dogged devotion from him and flaunt it for Helena to see, she let her hand rest limply in his. He suggested more than once that they should take a walk, past the church and through the long prairie grass until Sweetwater was little more than a smudge of buildings punctuated by the church's steeple. It wasn't quite the same as asking her to sit under the cottonwoods with him, but she knew he wanted to be alone with her. She fended him off, saying that once it grew dark, she would need to return home and look after her father. He accepted her excuse with less grace than he usually did, perhaps because he understood her going with him to the social as an advance in their friendship, a mistake she planned to address. . . tomorrow.

Telling herself that it was only polite to exchange a few words with Claudia and Mr. Jinks, she took advantage of the sheriff's being pulled away by a group of men who wanted to discuss a spate of petty thefts in the town and strolled down to where Claudia and her group were gathered. Myka's heartbeat sped up when she saw that Helena was among them, lying on the blankets on her back, looking up at the sky. It wasn't a dreamy looking up at the sky, something was troubling her, creating a crease between her brows and pulling her mouth down at the corners, and then when Claudia mentioned Liesl's abandoning of her, Myka wished it would be acceptable for her to pivot and march right back up the slope without saying another word. Maybe she should have done that since all she and Helena managed to do was snipe at each other, ruining one of her favorite Greek myths in the process. She had to force herself to be civil when Liesl caught up with her a few minutes later, to confirm a tutoring session of all things, though all she wanted to do was yell at her to go back to Helena. Liesl had caught the attention of the most fascinating, if most frustrating, person in Sweetwater (and though Sweetwater was a very small town, Myka couldn't imagine that Helena wouldn't fare well against a larger pool of competitors for the title), yet Liesl was with her, Myka, asking her about Shelley and Keats, when she ought to be with Helena, calming the storminess in those dark eyes by murmuring sweet nothings in German into her ear.

Finally Liesl left her and she sought out Sheriff Lattimer, incensed by the injustice, on a level perhaps not cosmic in scope but grander, she hoped, than the petty, childish resentment she was beginning to harbor about beautiful blond women, which awarded them with more attention than they cared to recognize and left others languishing for a single kind look or word from the one they desired. It would be so much more straightforward, so much easier with him. Guiltily Myka acknowledged that she wouldn't even have to give him much in return; he didn't ask for reciprocity, he asked only that she give him a chance. Why not, she argued with herself as she glimpsed him bending down and gently prying a slingshot from a little boy's hand, telling him that there were better ways of getting a girl to notice him than by loosing a few rocks at her. He would be a good father, if his easy-going and considerate courtship of her was any indication, and she could be content with a life in which she provided him poorly cooked meals, which he would uncomplainingly eat, and raised children who had his thick, dark hair and engaging grin. And her intellectual curiosity. Living such a life was one thing, wanting it, however, quite another. But there was one thing she could do to see if it was a life she could want.

Coming up to him, she touched his sleeve and put on her most winning smile. "You're so right, there are much better ways of getting a girl's attention. Do you still want to take that walk?"

His reaction was more wary than pleased, and his eyes searched hers as if he wasn't sure whether her question was sincere. "Of course I do, but you said you needed to get back to your father."

"He should be fine for a little while longer." She tried to thread her arm though his, but he was slow to crook his elbow. It was unsettling, this unexpected reluctance he was showing. But the part of her that understood she was being more aggressive than he was used to was helpless before the larger part of her that, having seen Helena and Liesl together for hours, wanted to explode in some wholly unacceptable manner in front of everyone. It wasn't that simple, though, to leave for a walk. Someone called for the sheriff to settle a brewing fight between two young men sweet on the same girl, and then there were the two older women who took her aside, her largely untouched pan of rolls carried by one of them, and advised her on the best method of baking bread. It was nearly dusk before they were left alone, and Myka no longer had any desire to sit out on the prairie and pretend to look at the sunset. Surely Helena would have left by now. As they rounded a corner of the church, she saw Helena in the midst of a group of men; she look tired and more than a little worn down by the day, but she was listening patiently to them. One had even draped his arm around her shoulders, busily expounding on whatever topic it was that led him to treat her so familiarly. Or maybe the topic was merely an excuse to touch her. But Helena didn't seem to notice the arm was there, nodding and smiling, and something in Myka began twisting in knots at the scene. Helena would let a man almost paw at her in public, but she wouldn't spend five minutes with Myka in her home.

Grabbing the sheriff's arm, Myka began pulling him away from the church. She had no clear idea about where she wanted to go, just away, but once she saw the fringe of cottonwoods ahead of them, she pulled the sheriff in that direction. She knew what was said about the girls who disappeared into the cottonwoods with boys after the social and what generally happened to them as well, but she didn't care. She had lived through being scorned for something worse with Sam, and she could survive whatever gossip might fly if someone were to see them slip between the trees now. The sheriff stopped, realizing where they were, and Myka, her flight abruptly halted, stumbled backward. "I don't think you know where we are," he said, holding her against him, lightly, protectively.

"Yes, I do," she said, trying to lead him deeper into the woods. "It's not the walk we were going to take, but it's time alone. Don't tell me you don't want to be with me right now."

"Not nice things are said about girls –"

He got no further since she clapped her hand over his mouth. He remained silent after she removed it and let her pull him to a nearby tree. He put his hands on her hips and murmuring her name against her skin, he kissed the side of her neck. She laughed a little, his breath ticklish. His hands didn't stray and his kisses were almost feathery; for all his boyishness, the sheriff was a gentleman. It wasn't unpleasant except for the tree bark digging into her back, and she was about to adjust her shoulders to have the bark settle elsewhere when she heard what sounded like footsteps. She raised her head and saw Helena only a few feet away. It was dark beneath the canopy formed by the branches, but she would have recognized Helena in the bowels of a coal mine. There was something about the way she moved or held herself or maybe she really was that pale and in the darkness the porcelain complexion could glow like the moon. Or maybe it was that Myka was so attuned to her that she could pick out from a hundred footsteps or heads of black hair, which was Helena's.

"What's that?" The sheriff muttered, almost sleepily, against Myka's neck.

"Nothing," she whispered, her eyes never leaving Helena's. Then she turned his face up and found his mouth with hers. Footsteps sounded again, faster this time and more unevenly, as if Helena were not so much hurrying as lurching away.

The kiss didn't last long before the sheriff hung his head, breaking it. "Myka, stop," he said quietly. "You're trying too hard."

At first, Myka thought he meant the kiss, and she couldn't look at him for the embarrassment she felt. Granted, she hadn't had much practice, especially not recently, but Sam had never complained. But then she looked into the sheriff's face and, despite the increasing shadows, she couldn't mistake the disappointment. He hadn't meant the kiss, he had meant her, and she slumped against the trunk of tree. "I'm so sorry, Pete."

"Ouch," he said. "That seals it, I guess. I had some hope with all the Sherriff Lattimer's and Mr. Lattimer's, you being you and wanting to do everything all formal and right." He lowered himself to the ground and tugged on her hand. She sat next to him, sweeping to the side the not-so-sea-green skirt of her dress. "But today I was beside you, and you still kept looking for someone. And just now, you were kissing me like you were proving a point." He patted her hand. "I know my kisses. I know what it's like to be kissed by someone who likes you, and I know what it's like to be kissed by someone who's just marking time."

"I've been horrible to you, Pete," Myka said, forcing the words around the horseshoe that had suddenly lodged itself in her throat. "Really, I'm not a bad person."

"Eh, you're all right."

Without thinking, she shoved him with her shoulder, just like she would have done to an older brother. He laughed and went back to patting her hand. "I hope he's a good man, but I have to say, not inviting you himself to the social is a black mark in my book."

"But he did," Myka said more to herself than to Pete, remembering how Helena had blurted her invitation, surprising the both of them.

"Then why did you come with me?"

You asked first. But that wasn't really true, she realized. Because to have said yes to Helena would have been risking too much. She couldn't trust Helena and, more importantly, she couldn't trust herself around Helena. It wasn't that she feared she would suggest something inappropriate or make some gesture whose meaning couldn't be denied or explained away; she sensed the power of her emotions and feared she was losing control over them. Myka had prided herself on her ability to manage her feelings. If she hadn't learned how to tuck away a nasty spurt of anger or cram an overwhelming wave of sorrow in a drawer, she wouldn't have been able to live with her father all these years. But in just a couple of months, Helena had dismantled a filing system – yes, it was a metaphor, but it felt real – that Myka had spent most of her life constructing.

She shrugged her shoulders, not caring that she was rubbing the material of her new dress against the bark, unable to explain it to Pete. "I shouldn't have. I shouldn't have come at all."

"Aw, it wasn't that bad. And I was with the prettiest girl in town." He pushed himself up and then helped Myka to her feet. "Let's get you home."

Later, leaving her at her door, he said with a seriousness he had kept at bay while they were sitting under the cottonwoods, "I can't wish you all the luck in the world, because I would've preferred it to be me. But I can tell you that if he's not worthy of you, he'll be leaving Sweetwater with a shotgun at his back." The shame and regret were plain on her face, and he smiled a smile, gentler and, if possible, sweeter than the ones he usually flashed at her. "They let me do these things 'cause I'm the law, you know."

She hadn't seen Pete since the social on Sunday, which seemed a longer span of time than it was because she was used to seeing him nearly every day. If he wasn't stopping by in the evenings, he was poking his head into the _Journal_ 's office as part of his daily circuits of the town. Or escorting her father home from the Spur. But she wouldn't have to worry about how soupy her pie filling was or how lumpy her pudding. Pete and his sweet tooth wouldn't be visiting as often. While she couldn't honestly regret the end of Pete's courtship of her, she regretted how it had ended. She hadn't ever treated someone else's emotions so carelessly, yet she had taken Pete's sincere if inarticulate devotion and used it as a weapon to strike at Helena, who had hardly seemed to register the blow.

The sun beat upon her mercilessly as she trudged back toward the town, angling northwest toward Helena's house. Rather than the sneak assaults she had launched during the social, she could engage Helena directly, refuse to accept Leena's excuses and force Helena to emerge and confront her. Once Myka delivered the information Charlie Graves had given her, if Helena could tell her face to face that she had tired of whatever was between them, Myka would be finished, finished with whatever her part was in Helena's scheme to foil MacPherson and finished with the dizzying series of feints that she and Helena had been engaged in since the day they had met.

Her resolve made her stand up straighter and quicken her pace – the heat was only another discomfort, after all, and she was tough enough not to surrender to it – and lasted until she arrived at Helena's door and heard the familiar refrain that Helena wasn't home and recognized that, this time, it was true. She felt herself slumping and the heat she thought she had shrugged off with a snarl was closing off the breath in her throat; Leena took her by the arm before she fell to her knees and urged her into the house. Asking her how long she had been out in the sun, Leena led her to the kitchen and sat her down at the table. After pouring her a glass of water and wetting a cloth that she firmly told Myka to hold to her face, Leena took a chair across from her. "Mrs. Wells won't be back until the end of the week. I can get a message to her, if it's necessary. Is it about the _Journal_?"

Myka pressed the cloth against the back of her neck. "It has to do with Mr. MacPherson."

Leena frowned, getting up once more and refilling Myka's glass. Asking Myka if she had eaten lunch and getting a shake of her head in response, Leena retrieved a few items from an icebox against the wall, a hard-boiled egg and a dish of sliced cucumbers and onions in vinegar. "Nothing heavy on a day like today." She cocked her head, surveying Myka's face. "Your color's already getting better."

"Are you this motherly with Helena?"

"Only when she needs it," Leena said, smiling. Her smile stilled and she regarded Myka questioningly. "Mrs. Wells likes to go to her ranch and ride her horses when she's troubled. She was upset when she came home from the social. Would you know anything about that?"

Myka crumbled the rubbery white of the egg between her fingers and let her eyes roam around the kitchen to escape Leena's steady gaze. The kitchen was bigger than she would have imagined, large enough to house the table she was sitting at, a thick round piece of oak that would probably be able to seat six at a pinch but was set for only two, the icebox, and an oversized range, black and quiescent mid-day but still hinting of power, like a bear in hibernation. Yet Myka didn't feel crowded; there was freedom to move from the table to the sink to the range and back without engaging in an elaborate dance to avoid knocking chairs against one another. The room was surprisingly airy; curtains the color of buttercream fluttering at the windows, the breeze tugging at the damp ends of her hair. Although Myka was never entirely comfortable in kitchens, every pan or skillet presaging a disappointment when in her hands, she felt comfortable in this one.

Which was why she could say, "I hurt her," almost wonderingly and yet know that it was true. That moment before she had turned Pete's face up to hers, when her eyes had been fixed on Helena, she sensed that, at last, she had found something to pierce Helena's coolly sarcastic shell, her new dress and her parading around the church's grounds on Pete's arm and then, later, the gibes and the avoidance, all having proved useless. She had wanted to grind that kiss into Helena's flesh, as if it were something sharp or nasty-smelling, as quarreling children would sometimes mash a rock or bug against one another, seeking to provoke the other to greater heights of fury.

Leena's expression hadn't changed at the admission. It was still calm, accepting, and, possibly, just a little amused. "Because she had hurt you."

"It's childish, how we're behaving," Myka grumbled to the room at large, but the curtains at the windows continued their merry fluttering and the cookstove's somnolence remained undisturbed.

"That's a discussion for you and Mrs. Wells to have." Leena refilled Myka's glass a third time, and Myka sipped at it moodily, the hard-boiled egg a pile of white and yellow crumbs on her plate. She was on the verge of asking Leena for paper and pencil to write a note to Helena, its message of necessity having to be more cryptic than she would like. 'News from Charlie Graves. Come at once.' No, that would be more likely to make Helena dig in her heels at the ranch. 'Have plan for bringing down MacPherson.' But Myka didn't have a plan, only a few thoughts that were refusing to coalesce. 'I'm sorry. I miss you. Are we still friends?' That sounded pitiful, even in her own mind.

"If you give me directions to the ranch, I can hire a trap and drive there." The words were out before Myka could stop herself.

Leena only smiled, but Myka suspected that she had known what Myka was going to say before she said it. "You don't have to drive yourself. I'm going there tomorrow. But we have to leave before dawn, it'll take almost a full day to get there."

She had left Leena, too abstracted to do more than wave as she was worrying over the list of things she had to arrange before returning to Helena's house early the next morning. The list was small, the week's edition of the _Journal_ having already been printed and distributed, but the two items on it were large, asking Pete if he would look after her father while she was gone and telling her father she was going to see Helena. The awkwardness of asking Pete for a favor had her hovering at the door to the jail until he waved her in with a heartier greeting than she expected or felt she deserved. He quirked an eyebrow when she told him that she needed to discuss urgent _Journal_ business with Helena, but he made no comment.

"I'll see to it that he eats, and I'll keep an eye on him when he's at the Spur. He'll be fine," Pete assured her. He didn't look flustered or uncomfortable. He treated her with the same relaxed courtesy he had always shown her, whereas blushes overtook her in waves, and though she was able to meet his eyes, she fidgeted constantly, touching her lips, her hair, her dress. "Hey," he said softly, straddling a chair he placed in front of her, and giving her hand an affectionate squeeze. "We're fine, too."

His hand was tanned and square. Sturdy, just like the rest of him. "I know why you stopped drinking, but you never told me why you started." It was hard to imagine him like her father, his eyes red-rimmed, his hands trembling so violently that the neck of the bottle beat an unsteady rhythm against the rim of his glass.

He squinted, staring into a corner of the room. "I used to be in the army. Boring most of the time, except when we were sent out after a raiding party of indians. One summer was especially bad, a lot of farmhouses and ranches burned to the ground. We were sent out to, ah," he hesitated, "capture whatever indians we could find. Didn't matter whether they were the right indians, they just had to be indians. We were gone for awhile, longer than anyone expected, and while we were gone, there was an outbreak of cholera. Swept through the town, the fort. I lost my wife and baby." Grimacing, he said, "Others lost just as much, but I was the one who took to the bottle. I was cashiered from the army, and I drifted, from town to town, job to job."

"Pete," Myka said, stroking his arm. "I'm so sorry."

Remnants of the grief aged his face, deepening the lines and creases that could wrinkle so boyishly when he grinned. "It was a long time ago." He caught her hand, simply holding it for a moment. "Us talking, sitting around, it feels natural, like we're family. You know, where I'm the older, wiser, and," he paused, giving her one of his silly grins, which managed not to appear completely forced, "very handsome brother."

Following his lead, she exhaled in mock exasperation. "You must've gotten your vanity from our dear old dad." At the mention of "dad," her face clouded, and the teasing lilt to her voice faltered. "I know this is an imposition, especially after, well, the social," she stammered. "But I'll make it up to you –"

He clucked dismissively as she rose to her feet. "I'm happy to do it. And as for what happened at the social. . . . " He followed her out onto the walk. "Some things just aren't meant to be. But you remember what I told you way back, that I thought something good was in store for you? I still believe it. Still feel it." He tapped his shirt above his heart. Then he flashed her another silly grin, unable to tolerate seriousness for long. "Don't be surprised if you come back and your father's made me his favorite child."

"That would be Tracy," Myka corrected him with a wry smile.

He peered at her thoughtfully. "Lives in Kansas City, right? He probably doesn't get to see her much. She's not the one nagging him about his drinking and making him wear clean clothes and. . . ."

"Pete," she said warningly. She began to walk toward the _Journal_ 's office.

"Good things in store," he shouted at her retreating back. "I promise."

Her father was working on the press; he had pulled down the straps of his suspenders, flung his shirt over a chair, and pushed up the sleeves of his undershirt. There were streaks of dirt and oil on the undershirt and on his face where he had wiped off sweat with his forearms, but his eyes were alert and his grunted "Where've you been?" to Myka was no more irritable than usual.

Myka had been debating what to tell him. If she gave him the same reason for leaving to see Helena that she had given Pete, he naturally would ask her why there was _Journal_ business between her and Helena that didn't include him. If she told him it was about Mr. MacPherson and the Halliday branch line, he would inveigh against Helena's influence once more and admonish her for helping to invent a conspiracy where one didn't exist. If she tried to excuse the trip on the grounds of something more trivial, a new layout for social announcements, for example, he would ask why it couldn't wait until Helena returned. And if she told him the truth, that she couldn't bear that Helena was keeping her at a distance – Myka flinched at the thought and quickly reworded it – she couldn't bear not knowing why Helena was keeping her at a distance, he would shout and make absurdly unrealistic pronouncements to the effect that he would never let her see Helena again. Perhaps she should state her intention and not try to explain.

"I've been talking to Leena. She said Mrs. Wells is staying at her ranch for a few days." Myka paused, waiting for her father to put down a part he was rubbing his thumb over. "I thought I would go visit her. I'd be gone a couple of days." She had no idea how long she would be gone, but Helena, even if Myka was the last person she wanted to see, wouldn't be so ungracious as to not let her stay overnight before sending her back to Sweetwater.

Her father held the part up to a beam of sunlight and rolled it back and forth. "This'll have to be replaced," he sighed. He reached over and deposited it on the desk. "You know I don't want you socializing with her. I respect her as my employer and the publisher of this paper, but she's not the kind of woman you should be seen associating with."

"I wouldn't be seen associating with her at her ranch." Myka knew it was the kind of flippant response that could enrage him, but the heat had stoked her own annoyance.

"You know what I mean," her father said in a rare demonstration of mildness.

"She's not a bad woman because she runs a saloon and a brothel."

"I didn't say she was a bad woman. But she has a reputation that raises a cloud of dirt wherever she goes. Myka, you need to show some consideration for what others may think of you, because I'm not always going to be around to try to shield you from idle gossip. I thought you would have learned your lesson with Sam."

As always, her first, and angriest, response died before it could cross her lips. Her mind was racing, sorting through what her father had said and finding the appropriate drawer to stuff it in. Caring about her own reputation, that could just as easily go into the very large drawer labeled "Father's Drinking" as it could the one labeled "Sam." Failing to have learned her lesson with Sam, that she attempted to slam into the drawer labeled "Helena," but it was overfull, and even had she been able to cram it in with all the other thoughts and feelings jostling to escape, her father's reproach wouldn't have fit since it didn't belong there. Helena wasn't Sam, and while Myka, upon first arriving in Sweetwater, had identified Helena as another charming rascal with whom she was inappropriately fascinated, she knew now that there was no comparison, not between them and not between the feelings she had for them.

"You were the one," she said evenly, "who always told me not to judge someone based on what other people said but on my own knowledge of her. And I know she's a good person. She looks after this town in her own way, and she has a bigger heart than she likes to admit. Sam flashed his money and wooed the girls, including me." Myka turned her hands out in helpless acknowledgement of her naivete. "It didn't occur to me that someone would pretend to be sincere. Helena's the opposite – she pretends that she doesn't care."

Her father was nodding, but she suspected his assent was limited to what she had said about Sam. Her glance lighting on the press, she remembered that morning with Helena, how Helena had virtually taken the machine apart in unself-conscious delight. And then, when her father had reproved her for seeking Myka's company without his permission, how she had stiffened, as if he had struck her. Myka added, almost under her breath, "You don't understand. Her shell is the thickness of a fingernail, and she's all quick underneath."

Her father sat on a corner of the desk, to all appearances thoroughly examining the press with an experienced eye, but Myka knew that such frowning study was preparation before he said something he was sure wouldn't be well received. "That may be, Myka, but she has enough money to ignore the whispers. We don't. We have to live among the commoners, and the common opinion is that she's no better than the girls in her saloon. It's a small town where we're all rubbing shoulders with each other, but we can choose whom we sit at table with."

He looked shrunken, slouched as he was on the desk. It was harder and harder for Myka to remember a time when he didn't seem diminished by his surroundings, when, if he didn't stride like a giant over buildings and their puny inhabitants, he was at least coequal with them. The few instances in her childhood when he had had occasion to chastise her, she had cried even before he spoke to her she had felt his disappointment in her so sharply. When the debacle with Sam happened, despite the toll his drinking was already taking on him, she had still seen something in his eyes, increasingly glazed over and unfocused though they were, that had her trembling and choking back sobs as if she were a five-year-old girl. But that had been years ago, and he wasn't even that man any longer. She didn't want to defy him, recognizing that it would cost him more than it would her, hollowing him out that much more.

"Don't make me choose between you, please don't," she said.

His laugh broke harshly on the air, splintering like glass. "Putting it that way you've already made your choice, Myka." He pushed himself off the desk and roughly shrugged on his shirt. "I'll be at the Spur."

She watched him leave, unable to call him back. He was right; nothing he would have said would have stopped her from going. She wondered if not only would she find no welcome from Helena at her ranch, she would find no welcome from her father as well when she returned home. With dragging feet, she made her way to her alcove off the kitchen, and, pulling a small valise from under her bed, began to pack.

Nothing was stirring in Sweetwater when she left to meet Leena the next morning; even the birdsong was muted, as if the air, thick and felt-like from the heat, was a blanket overlaying it. Her dress was damp against her back by the time she had walked the few blocks to Helena's house. She had started up the walk to the front door when heavy thuds from behind the house caused her to veer toward the side. A buckboard had been drawn up within a few feet of the door to the kitchen, and Leena, both hands flat against the panels, was nudging a wooden crate into place in the back. There were other crates, and boxes and sacks as well, in the wagon. It was too dark to make out much detail, but Myka thought the sacks were of flour and cornmeal and some of the boxes clanked as Leena shifted them to make room, which suggested they carried metal tools or implements of some sort.

"Are you taking all of this to the ranch?" Myka asked, setting her valise on the ground and helping Leena to rearrange the wagon's contents.

"Only a few things. The rest I'm taking to the reservation."

There was a Sioux indian reservation a considerable distance southwest of Sweetwater, and although Myka had been interested in visiting it, its presence seemed more of an annoyance to the townspeople than anything else, and after her inquiries failed to raise more than a disgusted snort and a "Why do you want to go there of all places?," she had let the idea drop. Intrigued, she asked Leena, "Do you visit it often?"

"Not as often as I should or would like, but Mrs. Wells or I try to take out supplies when we can." Leena pointed to Myka's valise. "We can put that on top here."

Myka was slow to follow Leena's directions, trying to imagine Helena driving a buckboard to an indian reservation. "Helena goes?"

"Not as much anymore. She and one of the elders would get into arguments about the place of religion. He enjoyed them, but she feared everyone else thought she was being disrespectful, so she curtailed her visits." Myka grinned, and the undercurrent of laughter in Leena's voice was threatening to rise to the surface. "Hard to believe, isn't it, Mrs. Wells arguing with someone?"

It took only a few minutes to finish packing the wagon and Myka clambered to the seat as Leena talked softly to the horses and gave their harnesses a quick once-over. The sun was edging above the horizon, and the thin clouds veiling it were dissolving into wisps; it would be another hot day, and Myka remembered that she had forgotten yet again to bring a bonnet or any kind of covering for her head. "I take it that your father raised no objection to your coming with me?" Leena asked as she pulled herself up to the seat beside Myka and unwrapped the reins.

"He objects, but it's important I. . . get this information to her," Myka finished lamely. Her father had returned home late from the Spur. She had already gone to bed but hadn't been able to sleep, and she heard him stagger into a wall, curse briefly and bitterly, and then fling what sounded like his boots against the wall. After a few minutes, she heard the crescendoing of his snores, and she turned on her side, no more able to sleep than she had been before but reassured that he had made it home.

"I'm sorry this has caused dissension between you and your father," Leena said, clucking to the horses and turning the wagon away from the house.

"There's always dissension; Helena's just one of a number of causes." It wasn't entirely true. Dissension was always present in the Bering household, rather, the threat of it, but only when Helena had been at issue had Myka, for once, let it erupt into the open. What did that say about her? That she could watch her father drink himself to death and say nothing, or very little, yet when he questioned the wisdom of her associating with Helena, she hadn't hesitated to throw one of his golden rules at his face. As the wagon awkwardly bounced onto the rutted track that led west out of Sweetwater, Myka clutched at her seat and hoped that all the jolting would force such thoughts back into their dark corners. "Tell me," she said, searching for something else to focus on, "when did you first meet Helena?"

She felt rather than saw Leena's look. "Several years ago, in New York. Why do you ask, Miss Bering?"

"I've wondered if you've always been her housekeeper. The two of you are closer than that relationship would seem to allow." Myka wasn't at all certain that she wanted to pursue this topic. She wasn't inventing for the sake of making conversation; she had been wondering for some time, more often than she would be willing to confess, about the real nature of their relationship. There was an intimacy between them that she had begun to envy, and although Helena seemed taken with Liesl for the moment, that didn't necessarily preclude or displace an understanding – of some sort – with Leena.

"No, I wasn't always her housekeeper. We had a different relationship when we lived in New York, but when we came to Sweetwater, we thought people would have an easier time accepting us if we presented them with a more traditional arrangement." Leena had turned her face away from the track and the horses, and her eyes stared unblinkingly into Myka's.

Myka's throat began to tighten and her mouth was uncomfortably dry. She recognized that Leena was challenging her to press her, but she wasn't sure why. Leena had never once acted as if she was jealous of her or thought that her own relationship with Helena was jeopardized by whatever nebulous feelings there were between the two of them. "I'm aware that some women can develop particular friendships," Myka said, the words feeling tacky and leaving her mouth with difficulty. "I've wondered if that's what you and Helena have."

"We're not lovers, if that's what you're asking," Leena said bluntly. The undercurrent of laughter had returned, not as strong as when she had spoken of Helena's visits to the reservation, but unmistakable. "I'm surprised, Miss Bering, that your thoughts would go in that direction. Most young women of your upbringing wouldn't understand what a particular friendship was, let alone ask another woman if she was in one." There was no chiding in the observation, no offended dignity, but no real surprise either. It was as though, somehow, Leena had been expecting her to ask the question.

"I don't know what kind of upbringing you think I've had, but I've lived in every kind of place you can imagine, mining towns, cattle towns, little windswept towns on the edges of deserts. There's not much in the way of how people can behave with one another that I haven't seen." Myka stared back just as unblinkingly at Leena. "I've known women who have lived together for years and treated each other not as friends or sisters but husband and wife. I've also known husbands revealed to be women when they've been prepared for burial, and no one, except their wives, had ever been the wiser."

"And you didn't find them pitiful or deserving of condemnation?" The inflection was so soft that the question hung more as a statement between them.

"Only if their actions merited it, not because they loved someone of their own sex." Myka gritted her teeth as a blush warmed her cheeks. She sensed that Leena was waiting, trying to sound for something within her, and if Myka was going to let the gentle examination continue, she was going to push for something in return. "I may be mistaken, but Helena may have feelings of that nature for Liesl, the German girl living at the Donovan ranch. If I consider her my friend, how could I refuse to accept what she feels?"

Leena smiled, a mischievous light in her eyes. "Are you angling after what I know about her relationship with Liesl?" At Myka's deepening blush, she relented. "There is no relationship to my knowledge." The mischievous light dimmed, and she looked seriously, intently at Myka. "If you want to know if Helena's feelings are engaged, you'll need to ask her." She paused, and then, as if uncertain she had made her point, she said firmly, "You should ask her. But you need to be prepared for her answer."

Myka's blushing suddenly stopped, but her hands had grown clammy, despite the fact that her dress was mortared to her skin with a combination of sweat and dust, and she curled them together in her lap to warm them. She thought she knew what Leena was implying, but she wasn't sure she wanted to be sure. Helena's intentions unsettled her in a way Sam's never had. Maybe it was because for all her high-minded talk about people being free to love whom they would, the fact that Helena was a woman did matter. Or maybe it was because Helena was Helena and not somebody less complicated, like Pete or Liesl. Seeing the endless expanse of prairie they had yet to cross, Myka calculated that trying to plumb feelings that hadn't even fully registered in her mind would drive her screaming from the wagon in less than ten minutes, so she forced the niggling fears into her Helena drawer, conscious that the drawer had become so heavy it was more bank safe than file drawer and liable to crash through its rational, analytical flooring at any time, taking the last of her constraints and defenses against what Helena was coming to mean to her with it.

Thankfully, Leena was an easy conversationalist and they talked of other things as the sun rose higher in the sky and the prairie crisped beneath it. The grass all but crunched under the wagon wheels, and Leena observed that it was becoming more difficult to find the medicinal herbs and flowers she needed. She was hoping that she would be able to trade for some of them when she arrived at the reservation. As they passed abandoned homesteads, many with sagging roofs and caved-in walls, the occasional grazing cow looking out at them from a space that used to serve as a kitchen or bedroom, Myka wondered if someday Sweetwater would be just another deserted prairie town, its saloon and bank and general store gaping open to the weather, its residents long gone to more prosperous locations. It would happen sooner rather than later if the branch line to Halliday came to pass. Myka supposed she and her father would find another paper to run, somewhere. Helena would be able to go anywhere she wanted, and probably would; perhaps she would even return to New York, a place Myka could only dream of visiting.

"Helena said it was the 'spirit of adventure' that brought the both of you here, but surely there were more interesting adventures to be had in New York."

"Are you fishing again, Miss Bering?" Leena asked.

"I'm the daughter of a newspaperman. I can't help but ask questions." Myka grinned.

"And what if I said that you and Helena were meant to meet, here, in Sweetwater and that the both of you are necessary to prevent someone very bad from becoming more powerful?" Leena said. At Myka's look of disbelief, she laughed, as if realizing she had just said the most outlandish thing, and Myka, after a moment's hesitation, joined in. Leena advised, "Be careful where you cast your line, you never know what you might catch." Her expression gentled. "How long Helena remains in Sweetwater depends, in many ways, on you, Miss Bering."

"I suppose the next thing you're going to tell me is that I need to talk to her?" Myka sighed. "Considering the conversations we've had so far today, the least you can do is call me Myka."

"All right, Myka, you really should talk to Helena." And Leena broke into peals of laughter again.

They had long since turned south, and as the sun passed its zenith, the prairie became more rolling. Leena paid greater attention to the wagon as it became more difficult for her to steer it up and down the ravines that cut across their path with increasing frequency. "Much farther south of here there's an area called the 'badlands.' It's full of very unusual geological formations. Helena says that they were caused by erosion." Leena glanced over her shoulder at Myka. "Maybe she'll take you there."

"Is this the beginning of it?" Myka asked as they jounced over the lip of another ravine.

"No, you'll see what I mean when you see the badlands. But we are nearing Helena's ranch." She pulled on the reins to slow the horses' descent.

"What if she asks me to leave?" Myka gave Leena a worried look.

"She won't," Leena said reassuringly. "She'll growl about having unexpected visitors and she'll harrumph and stamp about, but she'll be glad you're there. And if I'm wrong, which I'm not, you can come with me to the reservation."

Myka sank against the seat. Leena had more confidence in Helena's reception of her than she did. It seemed ridiculous, now, her following Helena to her ranch. The information Charlie Graves had given her about MacPherson really could have waited until Helena returned, and Helena would see right through it. Once that excuse was torn away, there was only Myka's regret for her behavior at the social and the commingled hope and fear that Helena would understand, and share, the feelings behind it. Leena had told her to be prepared for Helena's answer. If it was no, Myka would have an uncomfortable visit, no matter how short its duration. If it was yes – she saw something out of the corner of her eye that something was gaining ground on them, a man on horseback.  The horse was walking, slowly, but given how carefully Leena was having to navigate the wagon, even a slow horse could easily out pace them.  “Someone’s following us,” she said.

Leena didn’t turn her head, saying with calm certainty.  “His name is Zeb. I guess you can call him the ranch's caretaker, although he was here long before Helena brought the property."

"And he's following us because?"

"Because we’re on Helena’s land.  He knows who we are now, well, who I am, so he’ll leave us to go back to the ranch. He's wonderful with the horses but ill at ease with people." Leena spared a glance toward the man tracking them and lifted her hand in a wave. He waved back and turned the horse away from them, soon disappearing over the lip of a ravine. "He'll come out and greet us when we get to the ranch. He's doesn’t mean us any harm, he’s just very shy."

"Does he live at the ranch?" Myka tried to see if she could spot him against the horizon, but all she could see was grass bending before the wind.

"Oh, no. He lives somewhere out here, not even Helena knows where. Some of the ranchers say he just appeared one day, wearing Union blue. No one knows where he came from, why he stays. Helena pays him in food for looking after the horses when she's not here. He says he has no use for the government's money." Leena held the reins limply, her gaze clouded. "There's a lot of sadness in him, but Helena's the only one he ever really talks to, and she says she knows no more than his name and that he used to be a horse wrangler in the army."

They trundled on, the wagon protesting every hill, the horses' hides dark with sweat, their haunches straining with effort. A bank of clouds had overtaken the sky to the west, partially obscuring the sun, and the wind began to snap at her and Leena's dresses, making the skirts billow around their feet. As they crested a rise, the wagon's jolting eased and, looking down, Myka noticed that the track they were following had given way to something more groomed, the hard-packed earth so smooth and free of ruts it had the appearance of having been planed. Leena was pointing down the hill, saying "We're here," and then Myka saw the ranch house, smaller than she had anticipated and tucked in among trees, the arterial spread of their branches nearly hiding it from view. The sole outbuilding was a barn, and next to it was a corral whose fenceboards shone whitely; on top of the fence was Zeb. He jumped down as Leena guided the wagon down the hill and to a stop between the house and corral. Myka had a fleeting impression of wild gray hair and a prophet-length beard separated by only a pair of even wilder eyes, which skittered away from hers. With surprising quickness, he darted to the horses and unfastened the harnesses.

Leena had already climbed down and was at the back of the wagon before Myka, stiff from the ride, could get her limbs working in unison. "Zeb, do you know where Helena is?"

"Off riding that devil horse of hers somewhere," he said, leading the horses to the barn. "But she should be back soon seeing as there's a storm brewing."

Leena was lugging a box of tinned meat into the house, and Myka, following suit, carried in a sack of sugar and a container that smelled of tea leaves. The porch fronting the entrance was big enough for a few chairs, and on the seat of one them, a book was splayed open. Myka craned her head to read the title, but the ink of the lettering had worn away. The kitchen with its eating area opened off the back of the parlor and as Myka set the supplies on the dining table she noticed that, although the interior was more rustic that she thought Helena would have found tolerable, it was furnished with an eye toward comfort, a sofa long and deep enough to stretch out on, a blanket draped over its back, and an armchair, similarly oversized, positioned at an angle to the fireplace. The floorboards were bare except for a large braided rug in front of the sofa, and books were scattered on it, the sofa, and the chair. Myka picked one up, Baudelaire's _Fleurs du Mal_ ; the poems were in the original French, but Helena's crabbed note next to one of them was not, "Clearly knows nothing about the actual life of a prostitute. Romantic drivel." Smiling, Myka put it down and went out to join Leena at the back of the wagon.

Handing a box to Zeb, Leena said, "As you ordered, coffee, tobacco, and licorice drops."

"I like them, too," Myka said, pointing to the bag of candy.

Zeb blushed, almost dropped the box, and blushed again, then reached in and mutely extended the bag to Myka. "Oh, I didn't mean for you. . . please, you don't have to," she said, stumbling through a refusal until she detected Leena's minute shake of her head. Dipping her head in an awkward gesture of embarrassed gratitude, Myka took out a drop and gave the bag back to Zeb. He looked at her shyly before putting the bag back into the box. His shirt was the top half of an ancient set of long johns, while his trousers could have dated back to the Civil War. Her initial impression of a mass of wiry hair through which a face of indeterminate age – it could be fifty or eighty – seemed to peep, as if it were trying to poke its way through shrubbery, was not revised upon a more leisurely appraisal. He did look like an Old Testament prophet, and his eyes had the half-mad, half-haunted aspect of a man beset by visions in the wilderness. Or perhaps only by loneliness. Without thinking, she touched his hand and they both jumped. "Thank you," she said.

He clutched his box to his chest and edged away, but Myka sensed that were she to touch his hand again, as she might continue to pet a cat dancing not quite out of the reach of her fingers, he would lean into the contact. "Here she comes," he announced.

Myka turned to see Helena flying down the hill on her 'devil horse,' riding astride, like a man would. She tugged on the reins to slow him as they raced toward the buckboard, and he started to rear in rebellion. Firmly guiding him away from the wagon, she let him hop and sidestep through his tantrum, his head jerking all the while, until he had calmed enough that she could let him approach the wagon. Bending to speak softly near his ear, her hands relaxed their grip on the reins. Helena sent a cool look toward Myka before addressing Leena. "You had a stowaway," she said, unamused.

Unfazed, Leena chuckled but was careful to give the horse a wide berth as she walked to the house, her arms laden with small bags and packages. "She paid her way." She tipped back her head to wink at Myka.

Helena bumped her heels against the horse's ribs and urged him toward the corral. Dismounting, she beckoned to Zeb, who set his box on the ground and took the reins from her. "Don't put him in the barn yet. He'll take down his stall. Let him run around the corral a bit first." She looked over her shoulder at Myka then turned back to Zeb, but her words carried clearly in the air. "He wasn't expecting company."

She hadn't put her hair up, loosely tying it behind her head, and Myka was mesmerized by how straight and thick it hung. Like ropes of licorice, and Myka fantasized about burying her nose in it and smelling anise. "What could tear you away from Sheriff Lattimer long enough to come all the way down here?"

The raw sarcasm woke Myka from her daydream, and she took in Helena's angry scowl, the brows drawing together in a vee of frustration, and the hands planted on her hips. Despite the pugnacious front she was presenting, in an open-necked shirt and riding pants, which emphasized the slimness that the layers of her dresses worked to hide, Helena looked almost heart-breakingly fragile. Her voice hoarse and saying not what she was anticipating at all, Myka said, "I have to explain to you about Pete."

"There's nothing you have to explain to me about Pete," Helena replied with icy precision, and Myka could almost see the vapor issuing from her mouth as she pronounced his name.

"Well, then, at least let me explain what I learned from Charlie Graves yesterday," Myka said helplessly.

"Not yet," Helena said curtly. "I want to wash up and talk to Leena first." She passed Myka and took the porch steps in a bound, slamming the door behind her.

Sighing, Myka watched Zeb finish unsaddling Helena's horse in the corral, and once freed, the horse snorted and trotted along the inside of the fence. Carrying the saddle and bridle, Zeb slipped through the gate, make sure that he latched it securely. "No one can handle him but her," he said in Myka's direction, his eyes fixed on the ground. "Acts like he ain't been cut at all." Realizing what he said, Zeb blushed and muttered, "Beg pardon."

"He's a beautiful horse." Myka rested her hands on top of the fence. A large bay, he was beautiful, except for the scars on his sides. "What are the scars from?"

"From the rowels of a spur. He's a high-spirited one, and the fellow who owned him before was bent on breaking him. Miss Helena, she said she bought him on the spot when she saw how he was treated. He's not a mean horse by nature," Zeb said seriously, forgetting his shyness as he talked about the horse and letting his eyes meet Myka's. "He just doesn't trust people."

"I can see why." Myka said just as gravely, which elicited a bashful smile from Zeb. "What's his name?"

"He was called Bucephalus by his first owner, but Miss Helena didn't like it. She calls him Dantes. Of course, he doesn't come to a damn thing you call him unless he wants to." Zeb caught himself and muttered another "beg pardon."

Smiling to herself, Myka saw in the horse's head-tossing, prancing display of independence more than a passing resemblance to his current owner. While Zeb disappeared into the barn, she continued to watch Dantes trot in the corral, occasionally lifting his head and neighing at the approaching storm clouds, as if he were issuing them a challenge. He pawed at the ground and then raised his head in Myka's direction, seemingly seeing her for the first time. He cautiously approached her, drawing back a step for every two steps forward, but the snorts were quieting into nickering, and his eyes were more curious than alarmed. Entranced, Myka felt herself leaning forward. She wasn't particularly drawn toward horses, but this one, with his blustery snorts and his injured pride, he was just putting on a show. He wanted someone to stroke his mane and croon against his neck, but he couldn't let himself ask. She held her hand, palm up, and he tentatively lowered his nose toward it –

"Don't touch him!" Three voices cried as one, and Myka stumbled back from the fence and Dantes launched into another series of rears and kicks. Zeb ran to the fence and vaulted himself over the top of it, while Helena and Leena rushed toward Myka.

"I'm fine. He wasn't going to hurt me," Myka protested.

"He always looks like an angel just before he's ready to take a chunk out of you," Leena said. "Are you sure you're all right?" She took Myka's hand and rubbed it reassuringly.

Helena stood off to the side, looking on as Zeb calmed Dantes down. She had removed the ribbon holding her hair and it spilled over her shoulders, curtaining her face from Myka. "For an otherwise well brought-up young woman, you do like to court danger."

Myka felt Leena hooking an arm around hers and leading her toward the ranch house. Helena remained in place, staring at the corral. "I wouldn't call it courting danger, I'd call it being determined," Myka said over her shoulder. Then so softly that even Leena couldn't hear her, she said, "And I don't give up easily, Helena Wells."

 


	12. Chapter 12

"I suppose I'll have to put you somewhere," Helena fretted, as though Myka were a potted plant, and an unwanted one at that, she had to find a spot for. She opened a door off the parlor into a room containing a workbench with scattered bits of harness and scrap metal, an easel with a sketch pad, which she quickly flipped over to a blank page, leaving Myka only a glimpse of a figure drawn roughly in charcoal, and a small bed. "If you prefer, you can take the sofa, but the room will afford you some privacy."

"The room's fine, thank you." Myka said, carrying her valise over to the bed. Other sketch pads and canvases were leaned up against a wall, and she wanted to walk her fingers through them to see what Helena had drawn, but given how hurriedly Helena had turned over the pages of the sketch pad on the easel, she suspected such an invitation wouldn't be forthcoming. The windows on the wall opposite the bed had no curtains, though there was nobody for miles around to look in. Besides, the view they provided of the setting sun was breathtaking. The storm clouds that had threatened earlier had taken a path to the north of the ranch, and the sun had broken through the remnants that remained, resting, yellow and wobbly like a yolk, level with the horizon. It was continuing to sink, leaving behind serpentine trails of red and orange, pink and purple. The easel had been set up between the windows, and Myka touched its wood lightly, careful not to let her fingers drift toward the sketch pad. "The sunsets here must be a lovely thing to paint."

"I've tried, but none of my paints quite capture the colors." Helena restlessly moved to the workbench and fiddled with a piece of harness. She nodded toward the parlor. "My room is on the other side, if later you find you need. . . . ." Her voice trailed off and she dropped the harness on the bench. "I'll let you get settled."

She closed the door behind her, but the sounds from the parlor and the kitchen were hardly muted. Myka could hear Leena raise her voice in a question and Helena answer. Bangs sounded, as if Leena was opening the doors and dampers of the cookstove, and in response to what must have been some kind of admonishment, Myka heard Helena say, "I usually try to get Zeb to start it for me." She sounded more than a little sulky, and Myka smiled to herself as she sat down on the bed and sorted through the very modest assortment of clothes she had brought with her. She wanted to clean her face and hands, but there was no basin in the room.

She joined Leena and Helena in the kitchen, where Leena was leaning against the cookstove, arms folded, and Helena, looking more rebellious than chastened, was bent over trying to peer into the bags Leena had brought from the wagon. "You brought some of your soda bread with you, didn't you? I had to eat apples for breakfast today, and they were wormy."

Leena nudged her away from the bag. "If you had bothered to light the stove, you might have been able to cook your breakfast."

"It's been hot, haven't you noticed?" Helena demanded sarcastically. "I came down here not to be bothered," she continued, "and you --." She stopped upon noticing Myka and looked away, her brows drawn down in an annoyed vee, a faint pink tinting her cheeks.

"I was hoping you might tell me where I could find something to wash up with," Myka said.

Leena smiled at Helena. "Perhaps I should tell her about the accommodations here." She gestured toward the sink. "We do have running water, thanks to the well and Claudia's plumbing work last summer. And Helena can provide you with a basin." She pointed to a cupboard, and Helena, with a dark look, opened it and took out a bowl that could be used as a basin. "We currently have no hot water because, as you might have heard, the stove hasn't been started since Helena arrived."

Helena handed Myka the basin. "As I was telling Leena, it's been atrociously hot here."

"Which means if you want to do more than wash your face, you'll have to use Helena's bathtub."

"Bathtub?"

Helena exhaled loudly and impatiently, directing another dark look at Leena. "There is a natural spring on this property, which makes a lovely pond for swimming and bathing –"

Myka cocked her head, running through all the implications of what Helena had just said. "You mean I would take a bath in the spring outside and by outside, you mean outdoors, in nature."

"It's just horses and Zeb out here," Helena said off-handedly.

And you, Myka thought.

"If your modesty is offended, I'm sure I can find something that you can bathe in," Helena said, her exasperation with both Leena and Myka clear. "Or you can choose not to bathe at all." She shrugged. "I find it refreshing to dip into the pond at night. The two of you can join me, or you can stay here."

"Helena," Leena said, "I need to get to the reservation tonight, so I can't stay. In fact, I'll need Zeb to harness the horses for me now."

"I thought -," Helena said, uncertainty and something perilously close to a child's whininess beginning to creep into her voice.

"I brought food for your meals the next two days. If you eat wisely," Leena said sternly. She opened the back door, which was between the sink and cupboards, and looked at Myka. "Which means that you'll need to see to it that she doesn't eat all the soda bread at one sitting or let the ants get to the cookies or leave the cheese in the sun."

"I'm not a child. I get my own tea of a morning, as you well know," Helena shouted as Leena closed the door behind her. Aware that she had, perhaps, only proved Leena's point, with a rare gracelessness, she stumbled on her way to the sink and dropped the basin into it. Muttering under her breath, she filled the basin and handed it to Myka. Ransacking the drawers, she found a cloth to give to her as well. "Are you sorry you came?" she asked, a rueful smile chasing the mutinous expression from her face.

"You weren't expecting us. . . me," Myka said, fending off the question.

"It doesn't excuse my lack of graciousness," Helena said. "You _are_ welcome here, Myka." Her smile was warmer and oddly shy, and Myka tried to ignore the fluttering sensation in her chest.

Dinner consisted of the leftover fish from lunch, which Zeb had caught from a creek on the property. Helena brought it up from the cold cellar as well as canned beans and tomatoes. Myka looked at the dusty jars and tried not to shudder, opening a tin of cookies that Leena had brought with her. Leena had long since left for the reservation, responding to Helena's worries about her traveling at night by saying only, "My friends will be looking out for me." Zeb had disappeared after rounding up the horses and locking them in the barn.

She and Helena sat at the table, a lamp at the center casting a flickering, amber glow. Myka didn't feel refreshed, but she had been able to make some small repairs to her appearance. Helena had changed out of her shirt and riding pants and into a dress denuded of layers of underskirts and chemises. She hadn't put her hair up either, simply tying it in back. Although the dress was made of a sturdy cotton that left everything about Helena's figure to the imagination, Myka was uncomfortably aware, with every movement and every rustle, that there was only a thin layer of fabric between her and what she was actively imagining as Helena's naked body. Taking her fork and drawing designs in the juice from the tomatoes, she reminded herself that she had grown up with a younger sister and was too used to seeing women in various stages of undress to be flustered by what Helena was or, rather, wasn't wearing.

Helena stretched and rubbed the back of her neck, and Myka caught herself watching the rise of Helena's breasts against the material. She looked away. "Are you ready to talk about Charlie Graves?"

"I think," Helena said lazily, her eyes seeming to reflect the light, like a cat's, "I would rather hear the explanation you promised me about the good sheriff."

Myka reached for her cup of water, but instead of drinking from it, she began to revolve it in her hands. She would have preferred to talk about Charlie Graves and save the discussion of Pete for a time when it was lighter and Helena was wearing more clothing. "I know how it must have looked at the social, but Pete and I are friends, nothing more."

"Friends don't normally do what you and the sheriff were doing in the trees behind the church," Helena said. The laziness hadn't left her voice, but the eyes had grown alert.

"That was a mistake," Myka said slowly. "We both recognized that wasn't going to be the direction our relationship took." She felt Helena studying her and, remembering what Leena had encouraged her to do, she stopped playing with her cup and drew in a deep breath. "Why do you care if Pete courts me?"

"Because he would end up boring you silly, and there you'd be, with three children hanging upon your skirts and having nowhere else to go." Helena shifted, and Myka helplessly felt her gaze drift down to where the dress was pulling against Helena's hip.

She forced her eyes back up and told herself she should pretend it was only another hot summer night she was spending with Tracy in their attic bedroom, when they would lie on the bed in just their shifts. But if she were talking to Tracy, Tracy would be walloping her with a pillow for having been so stupid as to let Pete go. "Who should be my suitor, then?" she asked lightly, the blood rushing to her skin and leaving her feeling as if she had made some impassioned declaration. It was an innocuous question only if Helena chose to answer it that way.

"Someone who would challenge you. . . on every level," Helena said, but she was unable to keep her eyes on Myka's face, and as her eyes slid away and down, Myka felt the heat of a moment ago leave her, and she had to bite her lip to keep from trembling with a cold disappointment. "And not that dullard of a sheriff," Helena said with a spitefulness that had more energy than vehemence, as if she had more feelings to vent than her annoyance with the sheriff.

"He's a good man, Helena," Myka said quietly but firmly, "and I won't listen to you insult him."

Helena looked at her, her expression a confused, apologetic one. "You're right," she said finally. Another hesitation and then, with an aura of defeat that seemed to match Myka's own, she said, "Why don't we talk about Charlie Graves?"

As she repeated to Helena what Mr. Graves had told her, Myka feared that his news wasn't all that revelatory, and that the unease that had descended upon them during dinner would only intensify as each silently questioned her need to come, uninvited no less, to the ranch. What Charlie Graves had learned by assiduously eavesdropping upon a conversation between the railroad's man in Bismarck and some of the Territory's legislators, over a late-night dinner at the hotel at which Mr. Graves happened to be staying, was that there existed a guaranty provided by James MacPherson to the railroad's officers and majority shareholders. If MacPherson couldn't deliver a sales contract for the Donovan land by the end of the year, he would owe a considerable amount of money to the railroad. Myka remembered how Mr. Graves had wiggled his eyebrows, which particularly heightened his resemblance to a rabbit, and lowered his voice to a whisper to suggest that whatever the sum was – which he hadn't been able to glean from the conversation – it represented a sizeable portion of MacPherson's personal fortune.

"There may be some truth to what he said," Helena mused. "A guaranty wouldn't be all that unusual under the circumstances. In the length of time the railroad has been waiting for MacPherson to acquire the land, it could have been making other investments or investigating other opportunities. It wants something in return in case a sale isn't completed." Worry deepened the frown that had appeared on her face. "It'll make him that much more desperate to get the land from Claudia, one way or another."

"What can we do?" Myka had an idea, but she wanted to see if Helena was thinking along similar lines before she broached it.

"We?" Helena asked, although it seemed more indulgent of Myka's assumption that she would be involved in whatever came next than truly questioning.

"Yes, we," Myka said. "You weren't the one who had to endure his playing the gallant." Then, feeling that her remark had been unnecessarily mean-spirited, she added, "He was trying to be helpful, though it's obvious he's afraid of Mr. MacPherson."

The frown lessened fractionally, and the hard gleam of Helena's eyes in the light seemed to soften. "Of course you would give the old windbag credit for even thinking of giving the windmill a tilt." She stared at the lamp, lost in thought. "I suppose some reconnaissance in Bismarck is in order. If there is such a guaranty, it'll be in the office of a Mr. Wesley Kimball, otherwise known as the 'railroad's man.'"

"I'm coming with you," Myka said, locking eyes with Helena.

"Your father might have something to say about that. In fact, I'm surprised he agreed to let you come down here."

"He didn't agree to it."

Helena's "Myka" was so quiet that Myka almost didn't hear it. Bowing her head, Helena swept her hand over her hair.

I chose you over my father. Myka almost said it, although she would have been saying it to the crown of Helena's head, which wasn't the ideal position for such a declaration. Not declaration, actually, but fact. Nonetheless she still didn't think saying it to Helena's bent head augured well, there was something penitential in the drooping of her head, as if she were already carrying a burden too heavy for her and Myka's admission only added to its weight. Instead she said, "This is important, Helena. What MacPherson is doing is wrong, and we need to stop him. If we can find proof of the guaranty, we can publish it, the substance of it, anyway, in the _Journal_. The town won't stand for him trying to get the branch line moved to Halliday."

Helena straightened, raising her head as if she had meant only to stretch out a kink in her neck. "Ah, yes, I had forgotten how strong your passion is for civic virtue." Her mouth crooked sardonically.

Myka felt herself flushing, more from her shame at hiding behind the _Journal_ than Helena's mockery. "It's also practical. Readers want to think their editors actually like their towns." She stood up and gathered her and Helena's dishes. With her back turned to Helena, Myka was already finding it easier to talk to her. "How soon could we go to Bismarck?"

"I have to travel to New York for a few weeks, for business. Bismarck will have to wait until I get back." Myka could hear the reappearance of a frown in Helena's voice. "However, if you become aware that MacPherson is stepping up his campaign to get the Donovan land while I'm gone, have Leena send me a telegram, and I'll come back on the next train."

Myka struggled not to ask Helena why she needed to go to New York. Putting the dishes in the sink, she said, "Usually Liesl comes to town for her lessons, but I don't think she'd mind if I went out to the ranch instead."

"I'm sure she wouldn't," Helena said dryly, and Myka, puzzled by the tone, ventured a quick look at her, but Helena was watching their reflections in the windows. "I've grown used to staying here by myself. Leena doesn't particularly enjoy the ranch. She rides only to humor me, and I think she finds it too isolated. It's . . . nice to have company for a change."

While she had managed to suppress her questions about New York, Myka realized that she wasn't going to be able to let rest the odd inflection she had heard in Helena's voice when she had mentioned Liesl. She tried to busy herself washing the dishes, but there were too few to occupy her for long. "Claudia said that you and Liesl have become fast friends."

"I don't know on what basis Claudia says that," Helena said dismissively. She slowly turned her head away from the windows and narrowed her eyes speculatively at Myka. "Liesl was entertaining company at the social, but I'm not seeking to further our acquaintanceship. I wasn't aware that you took such interest in my friendships, or lack thereof."

Myka reached behind her and gripped the edge of the sink. She had shown no courage the last time she had had the opportunity to be more truthful about her feelings, and she didn't feel very Caesar-like at the moment, believing it was no mere river marking a border she was trying to cross but rather an abyss. "I don't think you form friendships very easily." Her mouth dry, she said, "I've had hopes of being your friend, but I feel that you've actively tried to keep me at a distance."

"Your father believes that your reputation suffers from any association with me outside that of the newspaper. I can't disagree with him." Helena said, moving restlessly away from the table. Myka had half-hoped that Helena might approach her, but she was pacing the small space devoted to the parlor, impatiently kicking aside the books she found in her way. "I am your friend, Myka, but I want. . . I want. . . ." She raised her arms only to let them drop to her sides. "Is that what you want from me, my friendship?"

It had been so much easier to talk about this with Leena, the words, the meanings, they hadn't refused to come to Myka's aid as they were now. It seemed so bald to say what she wanted, it sounded so differently in her mind now, the pictures she had seen in Helena's books flooding the room in front of her, obscuring Helena from view. Was that what she wanted? Dear God, even with Sam, it hadn't seemed so stark, so raw. "What else could I want from you?" she asked faintly.

"Nothing," Helena said. She turned toward her room. "I'm going down to the pond," she said tonelessly. "I'm sure I can find something for you to wear, if you'd like to come with me."

"No, I think I'll stay here," Myka said, trying to maintain her composure. Tears would do her no good now, and she wasn't sure but what she wouldn't start laughing if she were to open her mouth again. Something uncontrollable and despairing and which she could no more shut away in one of her file drawers than she could stop hearing Helena's flat "Nothing."

She heard Helena come back later; she wasn't sure how much later only that she had long since been in bed, tossing and turning and flaying herself for having failed to say what she needed to say to her. A need more physical each time she brought herself to the point and failed to push herself past it, feeling sharp and heavy, hot and cold, sometimes burning in the pit of her stomach and, at others, pounding in her head. After Helena had left for the pond, Myka had filled the basin repeatedly, trying to scrub away the sticky film her most recent failure had seemed to cover her in. But here she was, her stomach and her head at war with her, listening to Helena's soft footfalls, picturing Helena's hair, wet and heavy from the pond, and the droplets she would have missed with her towel dampening her nightgown. Myka bit her lip in frustration and crushed her pillow over her head. Somehow, in spite of her discomfort, or maybe because of it, the headache and the heaving stomach perversely relaxing, as if she could sleep only if it promised to be disturbed and broken, Myka did sleep until she heard Helena crying out in distress. At first it was only an unevenly spaced series of words, most of which Myka couldn't make out, and then it escalated into cries of protest, as though someone were trying to take something away from her, and, finally, as Myka rushed across the parlor, trying to skirt its furniture, the cries wound down into sobs.

She entered the room without knocking, surprised to see a lamp already lit on a nightstand before realizing Helena must have left it burning when she went to bed. Sheets coiled loosely on the bed, and Helena, her hands digging into the mattress although her sobs were quieting, lay naked on top of them. Pulling up a sheet from the foot of the bed, Myka tucked it around her, flinching whenever her fingers brushed against Helena's warm skin. Helena stirred and turned, the sheet slipping below her breasts. Blinking, her eyelashes pasted together with tears, she was slow to recognize Myka's presence until, with a muffled curse, she shot up, clutching the sheet to her chest. Fixedly staring at the wall, Myka sat on the edge of the mattress near where Helena's feet were squirming and curling in embarrassment. "You were having a nightmare."

Freeing one hand to wipe at her eyes, Helena said in a voice still clogged with tears but striving, not completely in vain, for a semblance of hauteur. "Thank you, but there was no need to come to my assistance."

Ignoring the flash of irritation that Helena's dismissiveness sparked, Myka said gently, "You kept repeating the name Christina. You know she's safe with her parents, that nothing horrible happened to her." She felt more than a little ridiculous trying to reassure Helena about Christina's safety, since the girl was thousands of miles away, but, despite Helena's obvious stiffening, there was something still so frightened in her expression that Myka felt compelled to say something, either that or wrap her arms around Helena, which, she sternly told herself, was not an appropriate choice. Christina. It was almost certainly the wrong time to venture what she had long suspected, particularly given the weariness that was slowly beginning to replace the fright in Helena's face, but she had floundered so much already at trying to get to what was between them, perhaps this was one truth that could be admitted. "You love her very much. I've seen the way you look at the picture you have of her." Myka waited until Helena looked at her and then tried on her most encouraging smile. "None of my aunts have ever looked at me like that."

Helena leaned against the headboard of the bed, the sheet starting to slip down once more, but Myka resolutely kept her gaze above Helena's neck. "Are you in the habit of eliciting midnight confessions?" Helena asked tiredly. Shrugging a little, which caused the sheet to drop perilously close to her breasts again, she said, "Christina's not my niece, she's my daughter." She paused. "I was an unfit mother, something I frequently revisit in my dreams."

Her discomfort at having to avoid staring at the top of Helena's breasts not strong enough to prevent her from letting her fingers run in a subtle caress down the arm closest to her, Myka said, "I have a hard time believing you were a horrible mother."

"You don't know everything yet," Helena said, surrendering to the sheet's tendency to droop and wriggling further underneath it, making sure not to let her arm lose contact with Myka's fingers.

"Then tell me." Myka moved her hand to the inside of Helena's arm and resumed the gentle strokes. It was an intimacy that Helena seemed to enjoy, but which made Myka only the more aware that Helena wore nothing but a sheet, and the sheet felt very insubstantial between them. The locket that had been placed on the nightstand served as an excuse for Myka to lift her fingers and point to it. "I've always wondered what the locket held."

Helena raised her head to look at the locket. "It holds some of Christina's baby hair." Settling back on the pillow, she took one of Myka's hands and began to trace its shape with her thumb. Her breathing didn't change, but Myka's became faster, shallower. "When I was very young, I became enamored of one of my brother's older, married friends. I had always prided myself on how much smarter I was than the people around me, but basic biological facts must have eluded me because I understood none of my symptoms for what they were. My mother was the one who realized I was with child when she came into my rooms one day as I was dressing." Helena stopped, but her thumb continued its work of learning every bump and line of Myka's hand.

"Did you love him?" Myka asked, her throat so tight she could barely get the words out. She already despised him, Christina's father, but she couldn't tell whether it was anger that had her tingling or the seductive movement of Helena's thumb.

"Richard?" Helena was taken aback by the suggestion. "Is it important that I loved him?" She looked intently at Myka, and the color rose in Myka's cheeks.

Myka didn't understand why she was so angry at the thought that Helena might have loved him. It was one thing to be incensed on her behalf; the man had been patently unworthy of her. It seemed a different kind of anger altogether to want to reach through the past, tear his face off, and then stomp on it. "I would prefer to hear that you didn't," she grumbled. "He didn't deserve your love."

Helena allowed herself a small, secret smile and raised Myka's hand to her lips, kissing each knuckle in turn. "I didn't love him. He rapidly turned into a disappointment, which was mitigated only by the fact that he was already married." A sly glint appeared in her eyes, and Myka began to cough, wanting yet not wanting to pursue what Helena had meant by a 'disappointment.' Helena had released her hand once she started to cough, and Myka was dismayed to discover how fiercely she hungered for Helena to touch her again. Increasing the distance between them on the bed to reclaim her peace of mind, she said, "How did your family react once they knew?"

"Horrified, ashamed, and eager to sequester me with relatives in the north of England." The glint and the secret smile were gone. "My brother and his wife hadn't been able to conceive, and I was told that once I gave birth, they would raise the baby as their own. Some respectable explanation about my baby's parentage would be disseminated, and, after a similarly respectable period of time had elapsed, I would be allowed to return home." She paused, her gaze turned inward, as if she were trying to recognize the girl she had once been. "I didn't want to be a mother, and though I ordinarily resisted my parents' edicts, this was one of the few occasions when we were all in agreement."

Helena looked over to the nightstand, fondly regarding the locket, its scratches and other blemishes visible in the light. "I had waited nine long months to be delivered of this child only to hear that my sister-in-law had taken ill. The wet nurse they hired had been exposed as well, and the doctor didn't think it wise to bring an infant into the home. I had to nurse Christina, and by the time my sister-in-law had recovered, I knew I could never give my daughter up. Not willingly. I fled with her one night to London. Because my parents would never let me keep her were I to come home, and I had fanciful notions of my ability to obtain employment, I took lodgings and set about to find a position." Her lips crooked in a mocking assessment of her younger self. "I had no skills, none anyone wanted. I was good with machines, but that was considered men's work, and while I might have been able to parlay my knowledge of mathematics and smattering of languages into a position as a governess, most families didn't want their live-in help suckling infants at their breasts."

Without considering what she was doing or how Helena might respond, Myka stretched out on the bed and gathered Helena into her arms. Helena curled her back against Myka, resting her head on Myka's shoulder. "I found work here and there, enough to keep the rattiest of roofs over our heads, but that was all." Her voice slightly muffled against Myka's nightgown, she said, "I went hungry so often and for so long that my milk began to dry up, and Christina weakened. She was a summer baby, and London's long winter wore her down. By spring, she was running a fever every day, and she was so very tiny. I couldn't afford to take her to the doctor, and I kept telling myself it was only the sniffles, that once summer arrived and we could get out in the sun, she would be fine. But she kept getting sicker, and I was half out of my mind with worry. One night I was so frightened that she might die I spent what little money I had on a message to be delivered to my brother."

She was quiet for awhile, and Myka asked, close enough to Helena's ear that it felt like she was kissing her with each movement of her lips, each puff of air, "Did he come?" She knew the answer, but she wanted Helena to know that she was listening, that even though Helena had been alone all those years ago she wasn't alone now.

"Yes. He gave me a choice. He would give me enough money to take Christina to a doctor, but the family would wash their hands of me, or I could give Christina to him and Tilda. I would be handsomely recompensed on the condition that I gave up all rights to her." Helena curled herself tighter into Myka, and Myka, the sheet rustling between them, locked her arms around her waist and rested her cheek against Helena's head. "She screamed all night, and I rocked her and I held her, but nothing I did calmed her. Toward morning her fever broke, but I had already made up my mind. Charles came that afternoon with his money, and I handed her to him."

She sounded so desolate that Myka found herself saying, "Sshsh, Sshsh," as she might to a crying child, but Helena wasn't weeping. She looked up at Myka, her eyes dark and empty of tears but filled with a self-loathing that caused Myka to look away.

"A stronger woman than I would have kept Christina and a better one wouldn't have taken Charles' money, but I had spent nearly a year scrabbling and starving, and I was unused to hardship. I took his money and I left for Europe, my only reminders of Christina the locket and, of course, my shame. When I let myself feel it."

Helena tried to roll away, but Myka held her closer, murmuring what she hoped were words of comfort, telling Helena that she had been young, that she had tried to do right by her child, that surely she could forgive herself after all this time. All the things that Helena doubtless had told herself over the years, but to which she had evidently paid no more attention than she was paying to Myka now. She was staring straight ahead, her muscles tensed under the sheet. Myka, not knowing what else to say, asked, "How did you end up here, in America, I mean."

"For no particular reason other than I was running out of money and I was tired of Europe." She stirred and Myka relaxed her hold, but Helena didn't move out of it. "And before you ask me what I did in Europe and here in America before I came to Sweetwater, just let me say that much of it I do not care to remember." So quietly that Myka almost didn't hear her, she said, "In my dreams, I'm always fighting Charles. He's literally wresting my child from my arms. But I need you to know that it didn't happen that way. Hours before he came, I had her dressed in her best gown, and I let him pick her up without a word."

"Helena, shush," Myka said, trailing the back of her fingers along Helena's jawline. "You're not going to make me think you were a terrible mother, no matter what you say. So shush."

She thought she could feel Helena's mouth curve in a smile against her shoulder, but it may have been only her imagination. Helena shushed and eventually her breathing evened out in the steady rhythms of sleep. Myka slept too, waking as the sky was growing lighter. Easing out from underneath a still slumbering Helena, she turned down the lamp and crept back to her room. The bed, though not even half the size of Helena's, seemed empty without Helena in it, next to her. She didn't try to go back to sleep; she knew she wouldn't be able to, her mind buzzing with what Helena had told her and how Helena had felt in her arms. She had been pulled one way with sympathy and another with – she wasn't sure she knew how to describe it – the rightness of being so close to her.

Each time a rush of sympathy had caused her to hold Helena against her more tightly or to attempt some gesture of tenderness, she also recognized how much she simply enjoyed touching her. How perverse was she that she could enjoy the warmth of Helena's body, the scent of her hair, the smoothness of her skin when she was supposed to be comforting her? She had comforted people before, sometimes pretty young women who were worried about the illness of a parent or handsome, hale men who were out of work, and she hadn't been distracted by their attractiveness or wanted to be physically close to them. But as usual when she was around Helena, how she normally responded no longer applied.

She dressed and tiptoed into the kitchen, hoping that she could start the cookstove without waking Helena. Heating the water for tea wasn't much of an apology, but she had to do something to make up for the less than altruistic emotions she had felt when the two of them had been together in Helena's bed. Just thinking of it that way, sharing a bed, had her flushing and feeling tremors from the pit of her stomach to her knees. Banishing all thought from her mind, she mechanically went about filling the stove with kindling, filling the kettle, lighting a fire. She had drunk two cups of tea before Helena appeared, wearing her riding pants and shirt and with her hair loosely gathered back. Myka was prepared for her to be distant and cool, but Helena's smile, if tentative, was affectionate and widened when she saw the kettle on the stove. She diverted from her course to bend down and, with no sign that this wasn't how she always greeted her, kissed Myka's head, lightly scratching at the nape of Myka's neck. Myka leaned into the touch, and as their eyes met, Helena's seeming darker than usual, she met such a frank appraisal that she knew she hadn't been the only one who had enjoyed their closeness the night before. Something just below her lungs began squeezing her like an iron band, as if that hand still playing with the hair on her neck had moved down and around to her abdomen and slowed, but not stopped, its movement. The room had shrunk to the circumference of a straw, through which she was trying to suck in all the air she could. The appraisal in Helena's eyes firmed into an acquisitiveness that was both hungry and hesitant, and Myka felt that Helena wanted to pull her away from the table like she might pluck a curio from a shelf but couldn't let herself be so bold, not without permission. Wanting to nod, to say yes, Myka could only look down dumbly at the table, not sure how to give voice to the tumult within her. After a long moment when the only sound in the kitchen was of their breathing, Myka raised her eyes, and she and Helena stared at each other. Helena, instead of continuing on to the stove, veered toward the back door. The door closed hard enough to rattle the dishes in the cupboards.

Myka, pushing herself up from the table with both hands, as though she were a 70-year-old woman, peered through the door's glass pane and watched Helena stride up and down the yard. She prepared a cup of tea for her, and unwrapping the bread Leena had brought, she cut off slices and toasted them on the stove. Helena reentered the kitchen with more foot stamping and banging of the door than necessary. She sniffed the air appreciatively and held out a clump of wilted wildflowers. "These must be for you. Zeb's never brought me flowers before." Seeing Myka's delighted smile at the flowers, she murmured, "Is it really this simple?" Catching Helena's eyes above the bouquet, Myka was struck by the wistfulness in them, but before she could think of something to say, Helena was already at the stove, trying to remove the bread from it.

Helena yelped as the edges burned her fingers, and Myka, ignoring her muttered curses as some of the slices fell to the floor, inhaled the scent of the flowers. She pulled a blue flower from the bunch and threaded the stem through her hair over her ear. Bringing plates and a jar of preserves to the table, Helena glanced at the flower waving delicately next to Myka's face. "I thought we might take a picnic lunch with us, and I'd give you a riding tour of the ranch. You do ride, don't you?" She sat down across from Myka and spooned preserves onto a piece of toast.

"Mmm, like a sack of flour or so I've been told. But I didn't bring anything suitable for riding."

"No matter," Helena said. "One of Leena's outfits should work well enough. It has a split skirt, if you're not opposed to riding without a side saddle."

Myka munched on a slice of toast, burned but edible with the preserves. The tension between them had momentarily disappeared. They could be just two friends discussing how they planned to spend the day together. Then Helena bit into her bread, the jellied strawberries gleaming redly against her teeth, and though it was just breakfast and just Helena eating, Myka suddenly visualized that mouth and those teeth nipping, tugging, sucking, and the feeling that she was breathing through a straw was with her again. Trying hard not to labor for her next breath, she stood up and walked, steadily she hoped, to the stove and held up the kettle. "More tea?" She asked, her voice thin and dismayingly breathless.

"If you wouldn't mind," Helena said, the glance she sent Myka only a casual flick of her eyes.

Myka refilled Helena's cup and put fresh leaves in the tea ball. She had watched Sam eat countless times, watched him lovingly consume pieces of fried chicken and run his tongue over his lips to lick away the grease, and she had never been compelled to relive how that same mouth had kissed her or had imagined how his mouth would feel on other parts of her body. She hadn't been stone, she had felt . . . things . . . when they were alone 'stargazing.' Perhaps because her mother hadn't lived long enough to school her otherwise, Myka had had no shame about feeling . . . things. . . with Sam. But they were of a different order than the . . . things. . . she was feeling now, and though she wasn't ashamed that she was feeling them or that a woman, and not a man, was the source of them, she was acutely embarrassed, if only because she hadn't known she could feel them so intensely or so frequently. They were disparate, setting different parts of her to trembling or flushing or, it seemed, melting, but they were all working as one as well, pushing her, propelling her toward –

"We had better get going. I'll have Zeb saddle the horses." Helena was crisp and business-like, carrying her dishes to the sink, and Myka did the same, but more slowly and uncertainly. The room had taken on its normal dimensions once more, and she took a very welcome deep breath, looking out the window over the sink and counting how many hours of the day were left, doubting her ability to survive them.

Zeb had saddled Dantes and a smaller horse by the time Myka and Helena emerged from the house. Since Myka had managed to lose the flower she had threaded through her hair when she changed into Leena's riding outfit, she had taken another one from the bouquet and, this time, pinned it to her blouse. Helena carried a sketch pad and drawing charcoal as well as a satchel containing their picnic lunch, which she had put together while Myka changed. She stopped so suddenly that Myka nearly walked into her. Turning her head to see what had caught Helena's attention, Myka swallowed a gasp. Zeb's hair, though still long, had been tamed into a braid and the prophet's beard hacked off with a knife, if the wounds on his face were any indication. He wore a checked shirt and the pants didn't sport a cavalry stripe.

Myka went up to him and pointed to the flower on her blouse. "The flowers were lovely, Zeb. Thank you."

He had been fixedly staring at the ground as she approached but spared a brief upward glance when she spoke. He reddened and motioned to her to follow him to the horse that wasn't Dantes, the one not prancing with impatience and jerking against the reins looped over and around one of the boards of the corral. "This is Lola," he said, unfastening the stirrups and then hastening to Myka's side to hold the stirrup firm as she gripped the pommel and lifted herself with more determination than grace into the saddle. "She's real gentle. Nothing like him," he said, gesturing toward Dantes. He adjusted the stirrups, solemnly giving her Lola's history as he did so. "Lola used to work the fairs and such until she got too old. Her owner was going to sell her to a slaughterhouse until –"

"Until Miss Helena heard about it and bought her," Myka finished for him.

He nodded, taking Lola's reins and leading her away from Dantes, who was restive even with Helena handling him. "Now Lola isn't going to try to unseat you or pull any of _his_ tricks, but she's blind in her right eye, so you got to watch out for that. Lola ain't real wild about people coming up on her right side."

"Half-blind and half-dead," Myka said under her breath. "I should be able to handle that."

Zeb was too absorbed in his fussing with Lola's bridle to have heard her but Helena was stifling a snort as she drew up beside Myka. "He's a good judge of a rider's ability," she said mildly.

Myka shifted in her saddle; the split skirt, while roomy in the waist and hips - Leena, though shorter, was more solidly built – had its split in an awkward location. She sighed and shifted again, trying to hold herself straighter, all too aware of how elegantly and confidently Helena sat on Dantes. Even her hat, one more like a vaquero might wear, with its flatter crown and broader brim, was cocked rakishly on her head. "Now you look out for Miss Myka here, Miss Helena," Zeb said sternly. "Don't you go letting that devil horse have his head and running like wildfire across the prairie."

Helena widened her eyes in surprise at his mild reproof. "I will look after her like she's porcelain," Helena promised. "I will not leave her side."

Zeb seemed satisfied with her vow, but Myka heard the buried laughter in Helena's last statement. "Bring her back safely," he shouted to Helena as they trotted away from the corral or rather Dantes sullenly trotted while Lola placidly ambled behind him. As the ranch house and barn disappeared behind them, Helena turned Dantes to the south, bending to talk to him as tried to prance in resistance to the slow pace. "Should I be worried that Zeb will follow you back to Sweetwater?" Helena teased.

"I think I've captured his attention precisely because I’ll be returning to Sweetwater," Myka said dryly. "I'm sure if he thought I was going to become a fixture at the ranch, I'd barely catch a glimpse of him."

"As usual, you underestimate yourself," Helena said. "And as for your becoming a fixture at the ranch, that's entirely up to you." She let Dantes have his head for a minute or two, and he raced ahead until she slowed him down and walked him back to them.

Myka was having trouble breathing again, but she attributed it to the small cloud of dust Dantes had kicked up when Helena allowed him to run ahead. Keeping Dantes in check, Helena danced him in rough parallel to the path Myka was allowing Lola to take. "Since I confessed something to you last night, I think you're honor-bound to divulge one of your own secrets," Helena said with mock-reasonableness, although there was something too intent about the way she was looking at her to reassure Myka that she was entirely in jest.

"You volunteered that information," Myka countered lightly.

"I did." Helena hesitated. "I've lied a lot in my life, but, by nature, I'm a truthful person. Or so I like to think. Perhaps the most accurate thing I can say is that I don't like to lie to you." Her smile held no sardonic edge; it was not a weapon or shield she was using to defend herself. In fact, if a smile could be held outward, like a vessel, that was what Helena was doing, offering it to her as if Myka could drink from it.

Afraid if she looked at Helena's smile any longer she might let herself fall into it, Myka looked down at her hands, which were slick on the reins. She was holding them far more tightly than she needed to since Lola showed no inclination to increase her pace. "Which one of my few, uninteresting secrets would you like me to share?" She waited for the inevitable question about Sam, well, not about him by name but whether she, too, had been led astray by a man.

"I would like to know how long you've actually been running the papers for your father."

Myka knew the face she was showing Helena was slack with surprise, but this was the one question she hadn't expected. "It was you who wrote in response to my advertisement for the _Journal_ , wasn't it? Helena pressed, but the question had been gently said and there was no disappointment in her eyes.

"That's two questions, two secrets," Myka said numbly. She sharply pulled at the reins, though it was needless. Lola took maybe a half-step more before lowering her head to the grass and attempting to graze. Dantes shook his head, the bridle jingling, but Helena patted his neck comfortingly. Trying to preserve the fragments of her composure, Myka said as steadily and evenly as she could manage, "Yes, I wrote the response to your advertisement, but you're mistaken if you think I write all the articles and editorials. My father still writes much of what goes into the paper. I wrote the response to your advertisement, not because my father couldn't, but because he was in such despair after he lost his last position that he wasn't looking for work."

"Myka, I didn't ask what I did to trap you. I asked you because the more I've gotten to know you, the more of you I see in the _Journal_." Helena scowled at the prairie around them. "I think you ought to get the credit you deserve."

"My father still does the writing," Myka stubbornly maintained. The disbelief obvious in Helena's face, she added, "Sometimes I'll finish or rewrite certain things if he's. . . ."

"Too drunk or hungover to do it himself?" Helena said bluntly. "I own the Spur, I see what shape he's in when he leaves. It didn't take long before I concluded that you had to be more than a printer's assistant to get the paper out on time."

"Please, Helena, don't battle my father on my behalf. I sometimes think the only thing that's stopping him from drinking himself to death any faster is that he can still call himself an editor."

Helena's jaw muscles bunched, and she edged Dantes closer as if she meant to touch Myka, but the horse began snorting his dislike of the idea, so, with a head toss of her own, she let him trot a few feet away before bringing him in closer. "I won't interfere," she reluctantly conceded. The smile that appeared on her face was the one Myka had grown used to seeing, amused yet holding its recipients at bay; seeing it up close, she noticed how little humor it actually expressed. "Your father and I are alike in one respect. We don't deserve you."

Myka reached out to capture Helena's hand, the fabric of her shirt, something, but she had already urged Dantes ahead, her voice floating back to Myka, "Now that I've quite ruined our day, let me show you the lovely spot where we'll picnic."

Lola, finally prompted by something Myka did in her erratic pulling and slapping of the reins, transformed her walk into a trot, only imperceptibly faster but much more uncomfortable to adjust to, and Myka gritted her teeth as she bounced in the saddle. She hadn't lied to Helena. . . much. Her father did attempt most of the original articles and editorials they published; he left only the announcements to Myka. But sometimes he didn't get much further than the notes he had taken on the topic, and Myka would spend the evenings, after Pete had left, writing a draft of the article, which she would leave for her father to read in the morning. He would never comment about the drafts she left for him or the red-marked copies she provided of the drafts he had managed to complete himself; he would simply make the changes, or not, and, if it was close to publication, begin to set the type. When they first arrived in Sweetwater, she was doing very little writing at all, compared to what she had done in Hartsville and other places, but over time, as her father's drinking had returned to its normal frequency and volume, she took over more of the work. It had become so much a part of their routine, she never gave much thought to whether her role in the _Journal_ 's publication should be more acknowledged than it was, and given the tenuousness of her father's pride and sense of self-worth, she would rather that it not be.

She noticed that although Helena was riding Dantes with assurance, the set of her shoulders was less jaunty than it had been earlier, and she flailed at Lola to speed up. Lola did so, incrementally, but Helena was already riding back toward her. "I understand the sack of flour comparison," she said, her voice light, although her skin still seemed tight with worry, or perhaps regret, around her eyes.

Myka, relieved, stuck her tongue out at Helena. "Lola's not complaining," she said.

"She wouldn't." Helena pointed to a rise ahead of them that was crowned with a cluster of trees. "There's a spring up there, and it's cool under the trees. I frequently bring a lunch with me and sit under the trees and read."

"And where do you draw?"

"Through the trees, on the side, you have quite a magnificent view of the prairie. Or sometimes I'll ride Dantes to other spots."

They were quiet, only Dantes' resigned snorts breaking the silence. "Dantes. . . are you planning that after years of amassing a fortune in hay and oats, he'll return to wreak vengeance on his former owner?" It was a weak effort, but Myka wanted to erase the last of the tension from around Helena's eyes.

Helena gamely rewarded her with a smile. "I bought him from MacPherson not long after I arrived here and bought the ranch. I was thinking less about an appropriate name for the horse, although I wouldn't have kept Bucephalus in any event, and more that living here was my punishment, my Chateau d'If."

MacPherson. The scars on Dantes' sides were from him. Of course. But Myka didn't want to talk about MacPherson, not today. "Do you still feel that way about living here, that it's a punishment? What happened to that spirit of adventure that you said brought you here?"

Helena looked at her sharply. "You remembered something I tossed off when we first met?"

I remember everything from that day. But Myka wouldn't say that. "I have a good memory. It helps to have one when you put out a paper." Which was also true.

"The two aren't mutually exclusive. Although I may have exaggerated when I said it was a spirit of adventure that brought me out here, Leena and I did come here for a purpose. But it's also true that Dakota Territory is very different from anywhere I've lived previously. It's taken some getting used to."

Myka was reminded of what Leena had said jokingly – she had meant it jokingly, hadn't she? – about being destined to meet Helena, here, in order to stop someone bad from becoming more powerful. It was her turn to look sharply at her companion. "What was the purpose?"

"To do good, to help people? Perhaps I was looking for redemption and Leena pointed the way." Helena's gaze was steady.

"And afterwards, assuming you've found your redemption, what then?" Myka tried to ask it casually, but she couldn't. She also remembered that Leena had told her how long Helena stayed in Sweetwater might depend upon her. Myka had lived in nicer places than Sweetwater, and she had also lived in worse. You could carve out a life here in the Territory, but it wouldn't necessarily be easy.

"I don't know. Maybe you'll have some suggestions for me." Helena's tone was neither playful nor serious but seemed to hover between the two.

It was one word, one syllable. Stay. Why couldn't she say it? Myka chewed her lip in frustration. After a long moment, she cleared her throat and said, "Dantes, Lola, after Lola Montez, I presume." At Helena's grin, Myka said, "What names of the infamous have you given the others? And were they horses in need as well?"

Helena laughed and they chatted about her other horses until they reached the top of the rise. Vixen, Portia, and Rainbow. Rainbow was the newest addition, new even to Helena, a motherless colt Zeb had found wandering one of the ranch's ravines. Vixen so named because she was a hopeless flirt and prone to running off, Portia was the elder statesman of the mares ("Older than Lola?" Myka asked incredulously and Helena only nodded), and Rainbow was Rainbow because Zeb had found him under a rainbow or so he claimed. The conversation was easy and, on the surface, light-hearted, but Myka couldn't shake the image of Zeb from her mind; they were having the conversation that each would have with him, not knowing how else to maintain an exchange with such a wounded soul. Perhaps she had underestimated the distance that still existed between them.

That was a thought she should file away. Turning her head, as if the movement would literally push the fear away, block it from her view, she asked, "Is there no waif or stray you won't take in?" They had topped the rise, and Helena was already off Dantes, removing his saddle and saddlebags. She walked toward a slight depression in the ground, where the grass was intensely green, and dropped the saddlebags.

"Why don't you come over here and set things out, and I'll take care of the horses." She squatted and pulled a blanket from one of the saddlebags and spread it out on the grass. As Myka began to stiffly dismount, Helena leapt across the grass to help her down. "I think we're almost at capacity when it comes to taking in the woebegone, but I think we can make an exception for you."

"Please tell me I don't look that sad," Myka said pleadingly. But as she took a few steps forward, wincing as skin chafed by the saddle and Lola's jouncing trot stretched to accommodate her, she had to admit that Helena was right, lacking in gallantry but right. She sank gratefully onto the blanket and pulled the saddlebags toward her, examining their contents as Helena tethered Dantes to a picket she forced, with difficulty, into the dirt and Lola patiently waited her turn.

Opening the satchel, Myka thought that Helena had chosen conservatively, bread, cheese, a hard sausage, and a few apples – though Myka guessed they might be for the horses – until she came to the bottom of the satchel and her hand fumbled against the glass of a bottle. She drew it out and held it up to the sun. Wine. Expensive, no doubt. She placed it carefully on the blanket and worked through the other saddlebag, which contained the sketch pad and drawing charcoal among cups and utensils. Having completed the task Helena assigned her, Myka looked around her. It really was quite lovely, this spot; the trees' interlocked branches provided a density of shade that even the sun couldn't successfully penetrate, and the water burbling from the spring at the bottom of the depression was clear. While the scenery was unvaried, consisting solely of prairie and sky, the starkness of the color palette, limited to the brown of the former and the leached blue of the latter, was impressive in its simplicity.

With a sigh of pleasure, Helena sat down next to her. No part of her actually touched Myka, but Myka could smell leather and horse and summer prairie clinging to her, different from the perfumes she usually wore but not unpleasant in its own way. Helena reached for the wine bottle and searched the small pile of utensils Myka had collected from the saddlebags until she found a knife that she used to pry the cork from the bottle's neck. Pouring the wine into two battered tin cups and handing one to Myka, she said "Cheers" and gently knocked her cup against Myka's.

Myka sipped her wine cautiously, giving Helena several sideways glances. Helena took off her hat and shook out her hair; it hadn't been gathered very tightly and spilled over her shoulders. Myka had seen it unbound earlier, but that hadn't really been the time to admire how straight and lush it was as it fanned away from her head. Now she wanted nothing more than to run her fingers through it, imagining the hair curling as reflexively around her fingers as a baby's fist.

"I said I wouldn't interfere and I won't," Helena said.

Startled, Myka said, "I'm sorry?"

"That's what you were going to ask me to promise, weren't you? Not to interfere between your father and you about all the work you do for the _Journal_." Helena was already refilling her cup.

"No," Myka said, confused. "I took you at your word that you weren't going to interfere." She looked down into her cup. "I don't want to ask you something, I wanted to tell you something, just in case you were thinking my father's some sort of ogre taking advantage of his angel of a daughter."

"I've never said you were an angel," Helena said dryly.

Myka looked up and glimpsed Helena's smile just as it disappeared. "I'm glad we're in agreement on that." Outside their semicircle of shade, the sun beat mercilessly on the prairie, and Myka remembered the harsh and summary judgment of the town after she had been found with Sam. White as the sun in its purity and just as scorching. "I cost my father his position with a paper," she said hurriedly. If she let her words race ahead of her she wouldn't have time to change her mind.

Helena stilled. After a moment, she placed her cup in the grass edging the blanket and hugged her knees to her. It was a strangely self-protective gesture, especially for someone who had only to listen to the humiliation Myka suffered, not relive it herself, and Helena, in fact, said in a voice as low and as hurried as Myka's, "You don't have to tell me this."

But just as strangely, the instinct to comfort her, against what Myka wasn't certain, was more calming than if Helena had been ready with reassurances and an embracing arm. "His name was Sam," Myka began.

Helena didn't interrupt. At some point she retrieved her cup, but it seemed more an action to focus on than a desire to drink since she took only a few sips. Myka found it so much easier in the retelling to see not only Sam's flaws but his attractions as well. He had brought into town a trove of stories about characters he had met and adventures he had had, some so outlandish that it was as if he was daring her to call them lies. His courting of her was just as exaggerated and excessive, calling upon her the evening of the very same day they met and swearing before he left her that he was already half in love with her. She had never entirely believed him, not even then, but he was such fun, and there was a dearth of that among the Berings. No more than a few days in town, and he was already the source of several rumors, that he was only one step ahead of the law, that he had a wife and child in some other town, but Myka put no more credence in them than she did in his stories. But other townspeople did, grumbling loudly enough that her father took note and cautioned her about spending time with Sam.

The summer that Sam courted her was dry and hot, not unlike this summer. Everything was coated in dust, even Sam's smile didn't gleam as brightly, and everyone looked for rain. That night, when Sam came for her, storm clouds were boiling on the horizon, but storm clouds often teased the town that summer, rarely delivering on their promise. They lay on the blanket and Sam immediately rolled on top of her – they usually spent at least a few moments pointing out and naming the constellations if only to give some truth to their stargazing, but Sam had shown no interest in searching for Orion's belt – and his hands were more insistent. They were practically married, he had argued (although there had been no formal proposal let alone the obligatory talk with her father), it was only natural and he would make it right, whatever happened. Myka had been resisting all summer, albeit with greater firmness some nights than others, and this night was no different. She wasn't sure why she was continuing to fight his pouts and his wheedling since she was driven by her own impatience, different from his in that what she most wanted was for it to be over, the teasing incursions of his fingers, his breathing into her ear, which she found more annoying than tantalizing, the implacable hardness of him, not just there, but all over, as if he were a bullet or arrow whose sole mission was to penetrate her.

At first it was just a few drops splattering on them and Myka didn't recognize that it was rain until the drops became torrents. The winds had risen and tore at their clothes as she and Sam battled toward the buggy, but the horse, frightened by the lightning and the noise, was already lunging across the field, dragging the buggy behind it. Sam suggested they try to walk to an abandoned farmhouse he knew of a short distance away and take shelter there until the storm passed. Then he would walk to the nearest farm to see if he could borrow a horse to take her home. The night deepened as they struggled to the farmhouse, the driving rain and their sodden clothing hampering them, and Myka didn't know what time it was only that it was much, much later than her father had ever permitted her to be out with Sam.

The farmhouse was mainly dry, but Myka could look through the roof in spots and, underneath, the rain splashed into puddles. She almost stumbled over a chair as Sam led her toward something low and oblong against the wall, a bed, musty-smelling but dry; even through the wave of gratitude she felt, she wondered how Sam had become so well acquainted with the house's interior. He urged her to take off her wet dress and wrap herself in a blanket. No need to be modest, he joked, he couldn't see her anyway. He said there was a lamp somewhere but his matches were too wet to light it.

Wrapping herself in the lone blanket, she huddled on the bed as Sam sat on the chair, his clothes squishing when he shifted. She wasn't sure when she made the decision, but she unwound the blanket from her and invited Sam to share it. It wasn't how and where she had imagined being with a man and, deep down, a voice within her was saying over and over that he shouldn't be the one, but she was tired, and waiting suddenly seemed so futile. But Sam didn't come to her. The squishing and flopping of his clothes suggested movement, but eventually the sounds subsided and she heard the chair creak with his weight as he settled back into it. "Let me do one unselfish thing here," he said finally, a rare seriousness behind his words, "and not crawl into that bed with you."

She didn't ask, now that she was offering him what he wanted, why he was refusing her. It seemed of one with this improbable deluge and her breaking, if only inadvertently, every rule of conduct virtuous young women were to follow. Everything else was out of kilter, so why shouldn't Sam indulge in a tardy bit of gallantry? She said nothing more, curling up in her blanket, and went to sleep. Only to wake up to the sound of him saying hoarsely, "Myka, your father, he's here."

Her father was indeed there, along with half the male population of the county, staring down at her. She discovered later that Sam's hired buggy with its terrified horse had careered into town and her father had feared for her life, thinking the buggy had overturned and that she and Sam had drowned in one of the rain-swollen creeks that ribboned the area. Given how he was looking at her, she suspected he would have preferred that she had drowned. It hadn't mattered that they found Sam fully clothed and half-asleep sprawled on the chair; she wasn't wearing any clothes at all, just the blanket, and had been alone in his company for all of the evening and a good portion of the morning. One of the men shouted that they should string Sam up from the nearest tree. Myka cried out in protest only to find their eyes growing harder as they could no longer pretend that her virtue had been taken from her forcibly. Though she kept insisting that "nothing happened" and that "Sam had been a perfect gentleman," no one believed her, especially not her father.

Once they returned to the town, her father lost no time in hurrying them over to the pastor's manse, asking him how soon a private, very private, service could be performed, and Sam had remained mute and miserable throughout, while Myka could only dazedly follow Sam's tugging off one of his own rings and putting it on her finger, declaring with a cheeriness at variance with his wide, frightened eyes that now they could consider themselves engaged. The ring was much too big for her finger, threatening to slip off at every movement of her hand. When she and her father went back to their tiny, rented home, without Sam, she took the ring off and left it on top of the dresser she shared with Tracy.

Their engagement lasted all of week and then the sheriff came to see her father, and her father sent her and Tracy to their room. His eyes as hot and murderous as when he had seen her in the farmhouse, her father roared into their bedroom after the sheriff left and told Myka that she would never see Sam again. Catching sight of Sam's ring on the dresser, he snarled that his whore of a daughter had made them the laughingstocks of the town and flung the ring into a corner of the room. Queries the sheriff sent to towns where Sam said he had been employed were answered in the affirmative; Sam already had at least two wives, one in Omaha and one in Cheyenne, and when the sheriff escorted him out of town, refusing to stand by and let him take a third wife, Sam had reportedly needed no invitation to leave, kicking his horse into a gallop and never once looking back. Two weeks after the ignominious end to her engagement, two weeks of being unable to withstand the alternately curious and censorious regard of the town's residents wherever she encountered them – the newspaper's office, the general store, the walks lining the main street (thankfully her father hadn't made her attend church with him and Tracy, sparing her that embarrassment, although she was aware his leniency was more for his own sake and that of her sister), her father came home one afternoon with bowed shoulders and his last week's pay in hand.

After Myka finished, Helena handed her her cup, saying, "Drink up. That's a story that needs to be washed down quickly." Myka obliged her, and Helena refilled both their cups. Recalling the question she had posed Helena about her own disastrous affair, Myka tried to ask lightly, "Aren't you going to ask me if I loved him?"

Helena's laugh was strangled-sounding, although she managed steadily, "I don't have to. Of course you did. You wouldn't be you otherwise." She aimlessly tugged at the blanket. "And have you been so scarred by the experience that you've given up on serious beaus or does a part of you still love him?"

"Neither," Myka said, taking the bread and the cheese and the sausage and cutting them into equal portions. "But the man who marries me marries my father, and that's quite a lot to ask. Besides," she said, looking directly at Helena as she handed her her half, "I find marriage appeals to me less and less."

But Helena didn't see or chose not to see the opening Myka had left her, separating the rind from her piece of cheese with great deliberation. She ate a few bites of bread then stood up, restlessly patting her pants. "I think I'll walk around a bit. You don't have to save anything for me."

Myka watched her as she stopped by each horse, talking to it and scratching its ears before walking down the hill. Perhaps she shouldn't have said anything about Sam, but she didn't think it would have changed Helena's opinion of her. Not that Helena would think her promiscuous if only because, from Helena's point of view, promiscuity was hardly a sin. Instead she feared that telling her about Sam had revealed how naïve and gullible she was, a hayseed rather than a hoyden. A small-town girl with a small-town understanding of the world. Myka flung herself on her back, peering at the sky through the interstices of branches and leaves. The sunlight, splintered by the canopy, splashed the trees and grass like rain drops, and Myka saw, again, her offering herself to Sam, feeling this time a gratefulness almost painful in its intensity that he hadn't been the one. She didn't believe her virginity was a prize to be awarded, but having endured the condemnation of an entire town when she had relinquished only her common sense, she wanted to make sure that when she did give herself she didn't regret her choice.

Sitting up just long enough to pull one of the saddlebags over to serve as a pillow, she took out a small book she had tucked into a pocket of Leena's skirt and tried to read, but she was having to squint and it was much easier simply to let her eyes close. It was too light and the saddlebag was too hard for sleep, but she enjoyed listening to the rough brush of the wind in the grass and the strangely human chuckling of the spring. Her eyelids fluttered open when she felt the blanket stretch and saw Helena easing down beside her, rolling onto her side and propping her head on her hand.

"I wanted to take them all on," she said without preamble, "that ignorant town, your lout of a suitor, and your father." She rubbed a finger against the rough weave of the blanket. "It's increasingly difficult for me to work with him. While I can pity him for his weakness, I can't abide how he treats you." She held up a hand to forestall Myka's protest, although Myka remained silent. "I won't interfere, at least for now. But when the time comes that you've decided he's too much for you, you can stay with me. You'll always be welcome in my home."

"People will think I've jumped from the frying pan into the fire," Myka teased, but gently, because Helena looked so grave. She turned onto her side to face Helena.

"I don't give a damn what people think," she said fiercely. "I care only that you're surrounded by those who love you and appreciate you."

Myka wondered if Helena recognized the import of what she had just said or if it was only the kind of heated exaggeration she would indulge in when she was outraged. "I thought you were afraid that your reputation would hurt me." Just the tiniest of barbs, just to prick her a little.

"Compared to those bloody hypocritical fools, I'm a saint," Helena muttered.

"I wouldn't go that far," Myka said, laughing. "But if I'm no angel and you're no saint, there must be a middle ground where we meet."

Helena dipped her head in what have been agreement or, possibly, a closer examination of the grass as she snapped a blade and started worrying it between her teeth. As Myka pushed back strands of hair that had worked their way out of her usual messy knot, Helena said, taking the blade of grass from her mouth, "You ought to wear it down all the time."

Myka reached around her neck and pulled at the knot. "Like this?" The wind caught the ends of her hair and whipped them across her face.

"Maybe not quite like that," Helena said, sweeping the curls to the side of Myka's face. "As lovely as your hair is, I prefer to see your face." Her hand grazed Myka's cheek, her throat working hard as she swallowed.

"It's not very proper to wear my hair down like this all the time." Myka was having a hard time swallowing as well.

"Propriety has no place on this ranch. Haven't you figured that out yet?" She said it casually, but Helena's eyes had narrowed with purpose. She leaned over Myka, fluffing out the curls, her hand coming to rest just below Myka's collarbone, fingers trapping curls between them. She carefully tugged on the hair, her voice continuing to soften. "I would destroy anyone who tried to hurt you."

Very aware of how close Helena's hand was to her breasts, Myka tried not to pay attention to it, but she was just as disconcerted trying to keep her eyes fixed on Helena's unwavering gaze. It was as if Helena was trying to plumb something within her, to bring it to the surface, and Myka instinctively started to arch her back, eager to surrender it to her. "Do you mean absolute destruction or only minor damage?" Myka said breathlessly. She knew she should stop talking, but file drawers were being overturned in her mind and all those things that she stored in them, precisely to prevent them from overwhelming her, were overwhelming her.

"Complete and utter destruction," Helena whispered, and Myka had never imagined that carnage could sound so seductive.

Helena moved directly over her, balancing herself on both hands, her dark hair touching, mingling with Myka's own. Less than an hour ago she had been thinking that before she offered herself again to anyone she needed to choose well and here she was, willing to let Helena take what she wanted from her, without asking for so much as an insincerely murmured promise. Helena's head bent closer to hers, the hard purpose in her eyes replaced by something more wondering, and though Myka had the fleeting thought that she had no aptitude for picking settings, an abandoned farmhouse then and an open prairie now, she watched the marveling disbelief overtaking Helena's face and reassured herself that it didn't matter where, only who. But something inside her, viewing the disarray of all that had been orderly and reasoned and, most importantly, contained in Myka's mind marshalled one last protest. Myka didn't know what she had said until Helena's marveling disbelief was replaced by surprise, bafflement, and, in the end, cold acceptance. "Since you're the only one I've brought here, I don't know if this is where I would make love to all my visitors."

The iciness of her response was bad enough, but the fact that it was so considered, as if Helena, during the swift succession of her reactions, had actually given thought to Myka's awkward joke was worse. Looking into those eyes, dulled and unreadable, Myka felt as if her words had driven a spike between them. She stammered out an apology, but Helena brushed it aside, gathering her sketch pad and charcoal and saying, with a stiff politeness that warned Myka not to allow such a situation to develop, that if Myka needed her she would be on the other side of the trees.

Myka sat on the blanket, staring out at the prairie. She wished she could take back what she had said, but ill-timed and insensitive though it was, Helena's response had seemed out of proportion. She had reacted with the exaggerated sense of injury that suggested she had, if not here then elsewhere, used horse rides and picnics as a means of seduction. Myka thought over that suspicion, letting it go after a moment. What Helena had done in the past, the men and women she might have been with didn't matter. Even if she had lain with a hundred women on that blanket, Myka firmly told herself that she didn't care. She hadn't been among those women, and none of those women had been her. She refused to believe that, as strong as her feelings for Helena were, Helena didn't feel something out of the ordinary for her. Myka acknowledged that their feelings might not be identical, but they were similar in intensity. It might not aspire to be a law of the universe, but there must be some principle that held that an overwhelming emotion in one had to be caused, if not necessarily mirrored, by a powerful emotion in another. Myka couldn't accept that the confusion and delight and molar-grinding frustration she experienced with Helena were conjured by nothing more than her own loneliness.

She picked up an apple and idly rubbed it between her hands, then looked at the horses docilely grazing. Picking up the other three and stuffing two of them in her pockets, she tried Lola first, careful to approach her from the left. Lola nickered in contentment as Myka patted her neck, and she lipped an apple from Myka's hand. Myka gave her another apple and another pat before taking a cautious, circuitous route toward Dantes. He lifted his head and watched her but didn't seem particularly alarmed. She didn't try to walk up to him; instead she sat in the grass where he could see her, a safe distance away. She played with an apple, tossing it in the air and catching it, speaking softly to him all the while. They were nonsense words for the most part, just crooning, yet he flicked his ears in her direction more than once. When she thought that her legs might have grown roots, she stood up but made no attempt to approach him. He rolled his eyes toward her warily but resumed his grazing. One step, two, still crooning, Myka advanced. She repeated the process several times until she was only a few feet away from him. Noticing how close she was, he began to prance and shake his head, issuing a variety of warning snorts. Myka waited until his performance was finished and crept nearer to him. He again made all sorts of dire equine threats, and when Myka extended her hand with an apple balanced on her palm, he whirled around, snapping his teeth in a bite that ended a few inches away from her shoulder.

"Stop that," she counseled calmly, looking into deep brown eyes. Keeping her eyes locked on his, she ran her hand down his neck. He stamped his hooves but otherwise tolerated her caress. She continued patting and stroking his neck and offered him the apple, which he nipped neatly from her. He began to nose the pockets of her skirt, seeking the other apple. Pushing his head gently away, she withdrew the remaining apple and held it out to him. His lips touched her hand this time, and she petted the side of his face as he crunched the apple. She was fairly certain that if she tried to climb onto his back, he would buck and rear until he sent her pinwheeling over the grass, but she didn't want to ride him or master him. She wanted only to pet him and tell him what a handsome boy he was, which seemed in keeping with his own high self-regard since he would nuzzle his large head against her shoulder whenever she said "handsome boy."

She turned away from him after crooning some additional compliments into his ear. Helena, ashen-faced, was staring at her from the edge of the clearing. She didn't respond to Myka's shy wave, hissing "He could have hurt you" when Myka joined her. Her jaw was set, but her eyes looked more bewildered than angry. "I wanted to warn you, but I was afraid if I said anything I might set him off."

"Helena, he wasn't going to hurt me," Myka said patiently.

"You don't know that," she insisted. "He's been an abused animal, and they don't always know how to handle—"

"Affection? Maybe not, but he wants it. I just had to figure out how he would accept it."

Helena didn't look convinced, but she was quiet for a moment. "It took me months to get him to eat from my hand," she said, not a little plaintively.

"That's because neither of you likes to give in," Myka said, smiling broadly in an effort to coax a smile out of Helena.

She returned it, wanly. She raised her hand to push her hair back, her fingers black with charcoal, and Myka pointed to the sketch pad she carried at her side. "Did you capture anything interesting?"

"Just prairie," she said briefly.

By unspoken consent, they began to repack the saddle bags when they returned to the spot by the spring. Helena saddled the horses, and Myka tried to suppress a groan as she hooked a leg over Lola's back. Helena didn't ride beside her, keeping Dantes slightly ahead of Lola, and Myka didn't attempt to draw her into a conversation. The ride back was sufficiently jarring to Myka's already sore muscles that she was glad to have to manage no more than keeping herself upright in the saddle. Zeb was waiting for them at the corral, and he was even more solicitous than he had been in the morning, more or less lifting Myka from the saddle and advising her that a hot bath would help to relax her muscles.

Abruptly Helena asked, "Why don't you stay for dinner, Zeb? I'm sure Leena's left us something we can eat."

He brightened. "I shot a couple of prairie grouse this morning. I cleaned and plucked one of 'em already and we can have it."

Although Myka offered to roast the bird in the cookstove, Zeb gestured toward the firepit close to the ranch house and said he would cook it there. After he and Helena put the horses in the barn, and Helena had retreated to her bedroom, with a listless "I'll be out in a few minutes" to Myka, Zeb retrieved the grouse from the cold cellar and rubbed what he called "prairie spices" into its flesh. Not that Myka was fascinated by the process, but she could feel the chill from Helena's bedroom even outside. She sat on the stoop behind the kitchen door and asked Zeb the occasional question about horses. She didn't tell him that she had fed Dantes, she suspected that he would be as dismayed as Helena had been, but after he spitted the bird over the fire, he rocked back on his heels and looked at her speculatively.

"You tried petting the devil horse again, didn't you?"

For some reason, perhaps it was more the intonation than the question, she blushed. "How did you know?"

"Cause he kept looking at you," Zeb said. He didn't seem disapproving, only curious. Then something suggested itself to him, and he chuckled. "Well, he's a horse, but he's a male horse."

"I don't see how that could make any difference."

"But it does," Zeb said mildly. "You'd best watch out how you act around the other horses. He won't like it if you get too friendly with them, I bet. He's a jealous one."

"He's Helena's horse," Myka countered.

Zeb shrugged. "It's a different relationship. They're two of a kind." He looked at her unblinkingly. "But you already know that, don't you?"

"He's easier to understand," Myka sighed. "It's simpler with Dantes."

"That's why I prefer 'em to humans. Present company excepted, of course." This time Zeb was the one to blush. With a great show of pretending that he needed to concentrate on dinner, he turned back to the fire and carefully inspected whether the grouse was evenly cooking.

They ate dinner outside as well, at a table underneath a tree whose branches spread wide and high, their leaves as big as a man's hand. Beyond the tree, the land sloped down to the spring that Leena had referred to as Helena's "bathtub." It formed a modest-sized pond, and a well-worn trail led from the back door of the ranch house through the grass and down to a slight embankment. The water had a metallic sheen in the early evening sunlight, glinting silver, and Myka imagined it not parting when she entered it but curling back, like tin. Zeb had given her extra pieces of the grouse, over her protests, and she pushed the one she couldn't eat back and forth across her plate. Helena had been silent, speaking only to thank Zeb for his efforts, and had eaten little. Even a plate of Leena's cookies, placed in the center of the table, didn't tempt her.

As the sun set, Zeb extinguished the fire, carefully scattering the embers and burying them deep in the old ash of the firepit. "Don't want to be starting any grass fires – it'd take out the whole Territory," he said to Myka, pointing to the surrounding prairie. She and Helena washed the dishes and, afterward, Helena disappeared into her bedroom once more. Myka stared hard at the closed door but retreated to her own room. She lit a lamp and sat on the edge of her bed and tried to read her book, but it didn't hold her interest. Instead her eyes were drawn to the canvases and sketch pads stacked against the wall. Reasoning that Helena hadn't asked her not to look at them, she knelt in front of the ones closest to her and began to turn them around. Many were paintings or drawings of the prairie, at sunrise or sunset or threatened by summer storms; others were of the horses, mainly Dantes, and as she dug deeper, she saw figures she recognized, Leena, Claudia, even Zeb. Helena was a capable portraitist, and she managed to capture Leena's serenity and Claudia's excitable curiosity. She sucked in a breath when she saw a canvas dominated by Zeb's wild eyes, the pain in them making her reach out as if to touch them. She heard the sounds of a door opening and closing and realized that Helena must be going down to the pond. She wandered over to the easel and looked through the pages of the sketch pad on it, no longer caring that, if Helena hadn't explicitly asked her not to look at it, her turning the pad to a blank page was indication enough. Intermingled among drawings of the prairie were sketches of Christina at different ages, and Myka touched these drawings too, feeling a pity that Helena would violently reject if Myka were ever unwise enough to express it. She sensed the sorrow behind them, despite the fact that Christina seemed always to be smiling in the drawings; they were the imaginings of a woman who hadn't seen her daughter at three or at seven, who didn't know whether Christina had preferred to play with dolls or climb trees. She returned the pad to the easel and sat down on the bed again, the heel of her shoe striking something both hard and soft, like a book, and Myka searched under the bed for it, curious to see what it was. It was another sketch pad, but smaller and thicker and bound like a book. She hesitated, promising herself that if the drawings were of Christina, she would return the pad to its place. But they were drawings of her.

Helena had drawn her reading, laying out the next edition of the _Journal_ , standing just inside the doors of the Spur, as she had been the day they met. Helena had drawn her with her hair up, her hair down, wearing dresses, wearing gowns. Myka smiled at seeing herself reproduced with such fidelity yet in clothes she had never imagined owning, let alone wearing. She couldn't envision a situation in which she would need a ball gown, yet Helena had put her in one, which was cut daringly low in front and left her shoulders and arms bare. She turned the next page and her smile froze in place. In these drawings, she was wearing very little, if anything, at all. Sometimes she was in a nightgown, but frequently it hung off one shoulder or was rolled or pushed up to her waist. In some of the sketches, her face was hidden; she was drawn lying on a bed or sofa with an arm flung across her face or with her head turned, but Myka knew that it was her. It wasn't only the fact that so many of the drawings were unmistakably of her, there was something even in the way these faceless women were drawn that told her Helena had drawn her and only her in these pages. There was an intimacy in the drawings that went beyond the poses and the . . . attention to detail. Despite their similarity to the drawings in the titleless books in the Helena's library, the provocation in these drawings was in the lack of distance between watcher and watched. Helena hadn't drawn her out of an idle or prurient curiosity to know how a desiring Myra might look but from the need to know if Myka could look at her with desire. Catching Myka moments before an encounter or moments after one, Helena wasn't focused on the act but on Myka's response to it. It was as if the drawings, collectively, were Helena's hope that Myka would feel as she did. While Myka doubted that Helena thought of her mind as a series of compartment or file drawers, she couldn't help but think that the sketch book was Helena's "Myka" file drawer.

Myka's smile grew and with the tips of her fingers she traced the charcoaled curves of her breasts and hips and then, with no need of the lines' assistance, the valley between her thighs. She closed the sketch book feeling a little flushed but unafraid to acknowledge why. She didn't know how long she had wanted Helena, since that morning in the _Journal_ 's office and perhaps even before then. Maybe from the moment she had heard Helena's voice and pictured it as an apple she would hold in her hand. But it wasn't just wanting or desiring, she knew that too. You wouldn't be you otherwise, Helena had told her.

She put the sketch book back under the bed. Noticing with amusement that her hands weren't trembling in the least, she took off her dress and all of the layers beneath it and put on the shift she had packed in her valise. She turned down the lamp and, once her eyes had adjusted to the dark, let herself out of the house. The sky was pinpricked with stars, the moon, a thin crescent the color of old ivory, had risen above the trees. She hurried across the grass, so dry it stabbed the soles of her feet, but she could moan over their state tomorrow if need be. The pond glimmered ahead of her, and she thought she spotted a head bobbing above the water. If it was Zeb's she wasn't sure which one of them would feel the most uncomfortable. She grinned at the scenario and, having arrived at the muddy verge of the pond, she waited hardly long enough to pull her shift over her head and throw it onto the grass before she waded into the water. It lapped, pleasantly cool, against her legs and, taking a deep breath, she dove beneath the surface. The pond's floor dropped off more sharply than she had expected, and she swam easily toward the center of the pond, breaking the surface a yard or so away from Helena.

Raking her hair back with her fingers, she fluttered her feet until she was facing Helena, who was staring at her in surprise. "What?" she asked innocently.

"You're here, you're naked, and you swim. What should I be most surprised by?"

"None of it." She felt for the bottom with her feet. She could touch it only with her toes, yet the water was level with Helena's shoulders and she, clearly, was not floating, she was standing. Puzzled, Myka frowned into the water and then realized the floor must slope up where Helena was standing. With a few languid kicks, she traveled closer to Helena. The water covered her breasts, barely, and she saw that Helena immediately cut her eyes away. She didn't try to hide her smile. "I wasn't opposed to swimming here, just bathing. As for learning how to swim, I learned as a child. My mother's parents owned a farm outside St. Louis, and it had a swimming hole all the grandchildren played in. And as for being naked, well, if you were a young enough child, no one cared if you swam naked. It seemed silly to my grandparents to put small children in clothes just for swimming."

"Ah, always the rational one." With that, Helena pushed herself off the bottom of the pond and began to drift slowly away.

"Not always," Myka said quietly, following her. Then she stopped, planting her feet, not looking to see how much of her was exposed above the surface. "Sometimes I'm capable of behaving very irrationally." Helena continued to float, her eyes darting around Myka, and Myka looked down. Her breasts were still covered. "It wasn't very rational of me to come all the way here simply to tell you what Charlie Graves told me. I could have told Leena to tell you or given her a note for you. But I'm also not very practiced at behaving irrationally, so once I was here, I kept trying to make sense of why I was here rather than telling you how I felt."

Helena was shaking her head, and Myka was reminded of how Dantes would toss his head when someone approached too close to him. Suddenly impatient with the distance between them, she swam to where Helena was alternately floating and letting her feet come to rest on the bottom. She had crossed her arms high over her chest, her hands touching opposite shoulders, as if Myka's words or just her mere presence in the water had somehow exposed her. Myka dug her toes into the silt and gently removed Helena's hands, placing one of her hands between Helena's breasts. She could feel the thudding of Helena's heart beneath her palm. "I love you," she said. The beats began to increase in speed and intensity. "I'm in love with you," she said, and it was as if she could see Helena's heart laboring like a bellows, and the thudding beneath her hand was a train thundering down a track. "That's really all that I came down to the ranch to say."

"That's quite enough, I'd say," Helena said shakily. She hadn't moved, hadn't pushed Myka's hand away, but she also hadn't met her eyes. She lifted them now, huge and black like the water and just as impossible to see into. "Perhaps you'll think better of it in the morning. I want to give you that opportunity." She leaned back, Myka's hand slipping from her chest, her arms working in the water, using its resistance to gently propel herself away.

"I'll still be in love with you in the morning," Myka said, not following. Leena had told her to be prepared for Helena's reaction, but she didn't think this was the reaction that Leena had been anticipating. But Myka wasn't surprised. It was one thing to draw her lovingly and to fantasize about an intimacy, it was another thing altogether to have that woman, undeniably in the flesh, tell you that she loved you. Myka had hoped that she wouldn't be presented with a Dantes-like display of warning noises and rebuffs, but she wasn't surprised. Helena had to get used to the idea. And if there was one thing Myka had garnered a huge store of over the years, it was patience. If Helena had to run away for a while, she could run. Myka would wait her out.

"You don't know me, what I've done, the people I've been with, the people I've hurt." Helena said, yards from her now, but her voice still ragged. "I'm a woman who abandoned her own child. What better example do you need of faithlessness?"

Myka remembered telling her something similar after her father had come upon them in the _Journal_ 's office, so she echoed Helena's response back to her. "When you're ready to tell me about all those things, I'll listen. Some of it I think I already know. It won't change how I feel."

"You say that now," Helena said grimly. She began to swim in earnest to the end of the pond. She stood up when the water became too shallow, her back smooth and curved and gleaming, white like the stars in the moonlight and as impossible for Myka to touch. She dried herself with a towel and then wrapped it around her. "I'll have to leave very early to make the train that goes to New York. Zeb will take you back to Sweetwater later in the morning."

Myka didn't protest, didn't say anything, only watched Helena as she walked back to the ranch house, carrying off the familiar commanding stride even in a towel. She heard the door slam shut, the snap of the wood sharp and decisive in the air. That was a bit of theatre, too, some bridle-jingling or hoof-stamping. Sighing, Myka stayed in the pond, swimming and floating on her back and wondering what she and Zeb would find to talk about during that long, very long ride to Sweetwater.

 


	13. Chapter 13

Myka bent down and inspected the exposed soil and clumps of crabgrass around her feet and tried to imagine how this spot would have looked in the middle of winter. Snow would have covered the prairie and choked the ravine she was standing in. The wind, even without a storm driving it, would have been unrelenting. "Joshua was found here?" 

"Just a few feet from where you are," Pete said. He was squatting on the lip of the ravine, squinting at the horizon. "I don't like that line of clouds. We should think about getting back to the house."

Myka looked up. The sky to the west was no longer the milky blue that it had been when they started out from the Donovan barn. It had turned the color of an old bruise, yellow and green with an underlying hint of purple. "It'll pass over," she said with more confidence than she actually felt. "It always does." She crept a few feet to her left and repeated her examination of the ground. Pete had only been humoring her when he agreed to take her out here. More than eighteen months had passed since Joshua Donovan had been found, face down in the snow, with two bullet holes in his back in this remote corner of the Donovan ranch. Snow, rain, wind, and the very occasional passing through of cattle had long since obliterated any evidence of what had happened here, not that there had been much in the way of clues when Joshua had been found. Pete had tramped the ravine for days but discovered nothing to indicate why Joshua had come out this way, nor anything to suggest why anyone would have killed him, which was consistent with what both Helena and Steve Jinks had told her. Thus the "rustlers" explanation had been bandied about, despite there being no credible evidence, other than a cut in the barbed wire fence, supporting it. But Myka had no illusions that she might find what others had overlooked, she had only wanted to see for herself how easy or difficult it would have been for someone coming from the MacPherson ranch to reach this ravine. "Do you know which of Claudia's neighbors are closest to this area?"

Pete stood up and pointed to the north. "Old Man Grissom and the Wheelers are the closest. I talked to 'em both because there's been bad blood between them and the Donovans, but Old Man Grissom can barely ride a horse anymore, and Joshua came to some sort of settlement with the Wheelers. To the west, you have MacPherson and Sykes, and to the east -" He turned to point east of them, but Myka was waving for him to stop.

"No one living to the east of the ranch, or the south for that matter, would travel all this way, across Donovan land, no less, to kill Joshua." Myka frowned thoughtfully. "How far away is the MacPherson ranch from here?"

"If you're talking property lines, not all that far, but it would be a ride for anyone coming from the ranch house."

"But it could be done, right? I mean, someone could ride over here, ambush Joshua, and then ride back without attracting attention, especially once he crossed back onto MacPherson land." A path down the ravine had been nonexistent, and Myka had had to put her hand out a number of times to slow her descent. Now climbing up, she scrabbled for purchase, until Pete leaned over and extended his hand. He pulled her up, and she brushed dust and bits of leaves and twigs from her skirt.

"But that doesn't explain why he would be here in the first place," Pete said, squinting again at the horizon and, taking Myka by the elbow, guiding her toward the trap. The horses had begun twitching their ears and moving in their harness, although a few soothing words from Pete seemed to settle them. He clicked his tongue, and they obediently swung the trap around and started an easy trot in the direction of the Donovan barn. Myka kept her head turned, wanting to keep the ravine in sight as long as possible. She tried to picture Joshua riding to the ravine, bundled against the wind and cold, breath a constant vapor in the air. "It had to have been something serious to draw him out here," she said.

"Don't bring up that spur to Halliday business," Pete said dismissively. "And don't go barking up the MacPherson tree either. I've had Helena Wells buzzing in my ear about that ever since Joshua was killed. MacPherson was out of town and didn't return to Sweetwater until after Joshua body's was found."

It wouldn't have prevented MacPherson from hiring someone to kill Joshua Donovan. Myka thought that more likely than MacPherson choosing to endure the tedium and frostbite that waiting for Joshua would have entailed. Moreover, there was the matter of Joshua's ring, which had never been found. MacPherson wouldn't have bothered to take it, but a gun-for-hire might have. The killer may have been no more than a MacPherson cowhand paid extra money to rid his employer of an impediment. If someone could get her hand on MacPherson's payroll, she could find out whether anyone had left his employ shortly after Joshua's death. But Joshua wouldn't likely have ridden so far just to meet a MacPherson cowhand.

It would help to be able to discuss this with Helena. She had been gone for almost a month, but sometimes Myka almost believed that she could sense her, the pounding heart she had felt that night when she had put her hand on Helena's chest still pounding, still frenetically pumping, driving Helena from one busy New York thoroughfare to another. It was no more than wishful thinking she realized, but if there came a moment when she felt that imaginary heartbeat slow, she would know that Helena was coming back. Every morning she would take a few minutes to step outside the _Journal_ 's office and listen, trying to isolate among the sounds of Sweetwater stirring the thumping of a single heart. Lunacy. That was what it was, yet she had stood outside the office just this morning, waiting for Pete and his hired trap and listening. She had heard dogs bark and voices float through open windows and doors, but she hadn't heard a heart beat in a steady, promising rhythm.

Yet she had felt something was different about this day, no matter that it looked no different from the previous 28, being dry, dusty, and unremarkable in every feature, the end of September being indistinguishable from the end of August. Except for their going to the Donovan ranch. And even that wasn't unusual anymore since Myka had been making the trip on her own to keep a watchful eye on Claudia. Nothing had been out of the ordinary, unless she counted Liesl's excitement at being able to play the hostess during their lessons, plying, or trying to ply, her with treats she and Marta had made or encouraging her to stay for supper, which would have seemed overstepping by the help at any other place but which had earned only Claudia's enthusiastic seconding. When, on her last visit, Myka had asked Claudia if she and Pete could visit the site where Joshua had been found, Claudia had jerked her head up and down in a forceful yes and Liesl had immediately volunteered to come along. Myka had managed to dissuade Liesl from accompanying them by promising to stay for supper. Maybe that was what was different about today. She would be having supper at the ranch. A small thing, something she hadn't done before. But not the kind of difference she had wanted this day to bring.

After several false starts, she and Pete came to the mutual conclusion that it was too hot to carry on a conversation, and she slumped against the seat, letting her eyes close. It was a long ride back to the ranch. Pete had looked behind him occasionally, tracking the development of the storm, but although the yellows and greens had intensified, the clouds had not advanced. Myka's head began to bob and automatically she craned against the seat seeking a more comfortable position. Since she had come back from Helena's ranch, her father, when sober, treated her to a contemptuous silence and, when drunk, which occurred with increasing frequency, subjected her to incoherent harangues about ungrateful daughters and the sins of the father being visited upon the child. While he would start his mornings in the _Journal_ 's office, he would decamp to the Spur by noon. He no longer made his rounds of the town's businessmen or the neighboring ranchers or farmers, and he left unread the minutes of the town council's meetings. Myka had been collecting the news items and summarizing the minutes, padding them out with news the _Journal_ received from other papers. She had been completing the layout and printing the paper as well, praying that the press wouldn't choose to be balky since Helena wasn't available and her father's fingers were too palsied to attempt any repairs. Her housekeeping, never pristine under the best of conditions, had deteriorated to the point that she had hired Mrs. Grabel, a widow who lived in a tiny but immaculately kept home a street over to help her with the chores. Her father hadn't objected and had hardly seemed to notice the change, which, other than they no longer had to fear that things might be growing in the dark corners of their rooms, was the only benefit since Mrs. Grabel was prone to her own dark mutterings, mainly about unnatural women who preferred to do a man's job and the disgrace of having a drunkard father. Mrs. Grabel had yet to make the causal relationship between the two explicit, which would force Myka to a confrontation she didn't want to have. As long as Mrs. Grabel kept unnatural women and drunkard fathers in their own separate hells, Myka could pretend that the old biddy wasn't commenting on her and her father, because she was enjoying the look of a freshly scraped stove and the scent of clean clothes.

The trap's jouncing became more pronounced, and Pete's commands to the horses were louder and more urgent. Myka opened her eyes, and Pete, lifting a hand from the reins, pointed behind them. "Fire," he said tersely.

Drawing her knees up under her and resting her hands on the back of the seat, Myka scanned the prairie unrolling behind them and spotted a few puffs of smoke rising into the air. Against the bank of clouds, she saw an occasional orange flame shoot up and then bend as if to lick the grass. "How far away?"

"Not far enough," he said. "It's on a direct line for the house, the barn, everything."

"And us." Myka shifted around as Pete snapped the reins.

"We have a head start on it, but if the wind picks up." He left the rest unsaid.

They were long past the gullies and torn-up earth that marred the area where Joshua Donovan had been killed, but the prairie still dipped and rose like waves, and Pete could go only so fast without losing control of the trap. Myka thought she could smell the smoke now, and the horses seemed agitated, less synchronous in their movements, twitching their ears and jerking their heads, the sides of their nostrils flaring as they breathed in the scent of burning grass. Pete risked another look. "It's gaining," he said. "The storm's beginning to push it."

As the trap bounced and rattled toward the ranch house, Myka pretended that the smell of smoke wasn't becoming sharper, the air wasn't growing hotter, and that the prairie wasn't beginning to crack and pop. Ahead and to their left was Claudia's workshop, which meant they were nearing the other outbuildings and the house. She hoped someone, Marta or Liesl or Artie, was watching the horizon and gathering everyone to leave for safety elsewhere. She tried to remember where Jackrabbit Creek was in relation to the house, retracing the tour Steve Jinks had given her so many weeks ago. Not far, but they would need time to get there.

They drew level with the workshop, and Pete slowed the horses, although they trembled in their traces, and Myka half-expected them to break into a panicked gallop. The workshop was at the top of a gentle swell, and looking down, she could see Liesl and Artie running toward the barn, and, veering from them, a woman hurrying toward the workshop, her hand holding up the skirts of what, even from this distance, Myka could tell was an elaborately fashioned caramel-colored dress. Her head was bent and covered by an equally elaborate hat, but Myka didn't need to glimpse the coil of black hair peeping from beneath the edge of the hat to know that it was Helena. It didn't matter that a grassfire was roaring down upon them, Helena was back, and Myka's lips stretched into a smile so wide that her mouth ached. Unthinkingly she moved as if to jump down from the seat, startling Pete, until Helena raised her head and Myka saw the eyes so large with fear that they seemed to have overtaken her face. Helena wasn't looking at them, she was looking at the workshop, and Myka recognized the source of her terror.

"Claudia," Myka said. "She thinks Claudia's in the workshop."

"Take the reins," Pete commanded. "I'll go look."

Myka squeezed his hands with her own and said as matter of factly as she could, "I can't control the trap if the horses panic. You need to go down there and get everybody in the trap and get them to the creek."

"Myka," Pete said, shaking his head.

"You know I'm right. There's a greater chance of everyone surviving this if you're the one handling the horses." He wouldn't look at her. "I won't be in there long, I promise. If I can't find Claudia, I'll be racing to join you."

"I'm going to come back for you," he said.

They didn't sound like lies, what they were saying to each other. They sounded like reasonable enough assurances, but Myka knew she wouldn't be able to outrun the fire if it advanced to the workshop, and Pete wouldn't be able to turn back in time to save her if it did. Myka didn't drop her eyes from him as she jumped down from the trap; if she turned to look for Helena, she'd lose her resolve. Pete yelled at the horses, his voice rough and splintered, and they lunged against their harness, the trap violently skewing to the side, two of the wheels spinning above the ground. Righting itself, the trap banged down the rise, and Myka didn't have to look behind her to know how close the fire was. Tendrils of smoke were wrapping around her, and her nose stung with its smell. As she ran to the door, she realized that long before the flames could burn the wood, the heat from the fire would probably cause the chemicals Claudia stored in the workshop to combust. If that happened, at least the dying would be quick.

Once she had shut the door behind her, Myka better appreciated the depths of Helena's fear. She couldn't hear anything but the sound of her footsteps on the floorboards and her ragged breathing, which suggested Claudia had devised some way of insulating the shop from outside noises. She also couldn't smell anything other than the heavy, vaguely acrid odor of chemicals. If Claudia was in here, unless she chose to look out one of the windows set high in the walls, which, for her, would likely necessitate the use of a footstool, she would have no way of knowing that the shop was in the path of a fire. The placement of the windows did little to lighten the interior of the workshop, and though not particularly wide, the workshop was a long building. Myka called out as she bent to look under benches and tables, on the off-chance that Claudia might be under them, overcome by chemicals or following some tangential inquiry related to one of her experiments or curled up asleep.

The floor was cluttered with so many objects, machines, pieces of machines, worktables, slabs of stone, and partially reconstructed skeletons of ancient mammals, which Myka had to pick her way around or climb over, she accepted that she would never be able to complete her search of the workshop. Not in time, anyway. And she couldn't let herself leave without knowing for certain that Claudia wasn't there. The realization didn't make her move faster or cause her shouts of "Claudia" to quaver with fear. Instead she began to list in her head all the things that she would never get to do, all the experiences she would never have. It was strangely calming, perhaps because it was the inverse of her habitual filing away of the things that troubled her or threatened her peace of mind. She was opening all the file drawers and looking at what she had buried in them. She would never know if her father would find the one magical thing that would stop his drinking, she would never live in New York or Paris or London, she would never work as a reporter or editor of a large newspaper, she would never be close to Helena again, in any sense of the word. The last made her pause, made her feel how the heat was pressing against the walls, so that thought she pushed back into a file drawer. She continued to call out and to peer into corners as the workshop began to fill with smoke. Reaching down she tore off a piece of her skirt and held it to her nose and mouth, and then as she rounded a secretary's desk topped with baskets and pails of rocks, she saw the rest of the workshop open up before her, empty of all but a punching bag suspended from the ceiling. "Claudia!" She shouted, although it came out as more of a croak. There was no response, and she spun in a circle, eyes boring into each shadowed corner. If Claudia wasn't in this area, she wasn't in the shop. Maybe, if she hurried, she could get out in time. Myka wasn't sure why running into the inferno of the grassfire was preferable to being blown to bits in the workshop, but before she could figure out the answer, she was already scrambling past the secretary's desk.

Cutting her hands on the sharp edges of the machinery she pushed aside, barking her shins on the legs of tables, Myka ran as fast as she could back to the door. It was hard to breathe, and her eyes had filled with tears from the smoke; her running, slowed by the number of obstacles in her path, soon degenerated into stumbling as her lungs labored for air. She careened into an ancient wardrobe, whose doors were half off their hinges, and she dimly saw jars filled with solids and liquids she couldn't begin to identify plunge to the floor and shatter. She had the stray, mad thought that she should try to collect the unbroken ones and put them back in the wardrobe. But as she swayed in front of it, she saw over the top of one of the doors the entrance to the shop, and she resumed her stumbling run toward it. The doorknob was hot to the touch, and for a heartbeat or two, she quailed, afraid of what she would find on the other side of it, but she took her improvised handkerchief from her mouth and pulled the door open. She saw only smoke, obscuring all but the ground at her feet from view; she didn't know but what she wouldn't fall off the edge of the earth were she to enter the smoke in front of her. But Helena might be on the other side of it, such a miracle might happen. So she put one tentative foot in front of the other. She expected her flesh to start melting from her bones at any second, and she was surprised that the air felt cool on her skin, and wet. But that was all she had time to notice before she heard a boom, like thunder but deeper, and felt something hard at her back lifting her up and out, away from the building. Her last thought, before she stopped thinking, wasn't about how she would never be able to tell Helena that she was beautiful or convince her that she was loved but that Helena really ought to help Claudia organize her workshop.

#####

She ached. She ached more when someone rolled her over. She thought she rattled, as if her bones had come loose. She was wet, she knew that, probably her own blood, she gloomily concluded, probably caused by all those loose bones poking about, although she couldn't actually feel that any of them had broken through her skin. Realizing that she might not have died, she opened her eyes. She saw the sky first, gray with smoke, no, with smoke and clouds, and though Pete's face, inches above her own and soot-covered, had thin, wandering trails that might have been caused by tears, it wasn't tears wetting her face but rain. Rain. It was soaking through her clothes, turning the burned grass and soil around her into an ashy slurry that coated the sides of her legs and arms as she tentatively began to move them.

He turned his head from her. "I've found her. She's alive and awake," he shouted. Then his face was above hers again. "Don't move," he cautioned her, and he gently began to run his hands over her, searching for broken bones.

"I hurt," Myka volunteered.

"I bet you do," he said, his voice catching. "Everything seems to feel okay, nothing's broken."

She stifled a groan as she moved her arm to touch his face. It was scored with what looked like claw marks. One eye was practically swollen shut, and his bottom lip was split and puffy. "The fire didn't do this," she said uncertainly.

"Not hardly. I encountered a hellcat." He smiled and then winced, his fingers automatically gliding over his lip. "I shouldn't have let you go in there," he whispered.

The pounding of footsteps, then a fanning out of muddy, torn skirts as Helena knelt beside her. She unceremoniously pushed Pete aside, her own soot-streaked faced coming into view, and Myka noticed a swelling along her jaw and a bruise blossoming at her temple. "You're hurt," she said disapprovingly.

"It's nothing, love," Helena said, her eyes shiny with tears. Her hat was gone, and her hair had unwound from its coil and hung limply down her back. It was wet, like her dress, and Myka felt the rain intensify, turning Helena's hair even blacker, as though the fire had burned it, too. But only her hair, because, despite being bruised and grimy and tear-stained, Helena's face was still perfect, still beautiful. Myka meant to tell her so, but after raising herself on her elbows, against Helena's protests, the dizziness that engulfed her made speaking impossible, and her head began to loll until Helena, with a whimper, gathered Myka to her. Myka could feel the warmth of Helena's body through the wet fabric of her dress and instinctively she pressed herself closer to her. Pete was saying something, and Helena responded in a voice Myka hadn't heard from her before, cold and growling simultaneously, and Myka had the image of an unwary Pete hooking his fingers through the bars of a cage and a snarling Helena lunging at them, fangs bared. It was awful and at the same time comforting, and Myka nuzzled her face into Helena's belly.

Then she was being lifted, carried, and, finally, deposited onto something hard and wet, which did nothing to relieve the aches and soreness she felt all over, and Myka realized she was in the back of the trap. Helena clambered in beside her, and in the same cold, growling voice, she ordered Pete to drive them to the house. Helena had pulled Myka's head onto her lap, and as she murmured words that Myka couldn't quite make out, but whose meaning was unmistakable in the kisses on her hair and her forehead that accompanied them, Myka looked at the damage that extended behind them. The fire had blazed up to the workshop before the rain had started falling, and the prairie for as far as she could see on either side of the trap was black. The workshop itself was a smoldering ruin, and Myka tried to calculate the distance between it and where she thought they had found her. The numbers jumbled together in her mind, but she guessed that it was a long way. She groaned, remembering the door pushing her and then the door being gone and the ground, steaming and hissing in the rain, rushing up at her, and instantly Helena was leaning over her, touching Myka's face, arms, ribs.

"What's wrong? Where does it hurt?" Helena's eyes had grown so dark with alarm that they looked like two holes drilled into bone.

"I'm fine." Myka tried to smile reassuringly, but even her facial muscles ached in sympathy.

"We thought you went up in the explosion." The shaking of Helena's voice traveled down, into the hands stroking Myka's hair, and they began to tremble so violently that Helena clenched them into fists.

"But I'm here." Myka was frustrated that she could seem to say no more than a few words at a time. Talking was like putting a puzzle together, and it was so tiring to hunt for the word that came next. "Claudia?" She looked anxiously at Helena.

"She had gone out to collect specimens, and when she saw the fire, she thought it was an opportunity to test her fire extinguishing system." Exasperation combatted pride, and Helena uncurled her hands to trace the curve of Myka's cheek. "She's quite a clever girl. She's constructed an underground network of pipes and tubing that connects to dozens of nozzles placed just above the surface. If she can get to the controls quickly enough, she can pump water to wet down the house and the outbuildings. That's why we couldn't find her, she was in the storm cellar turning on her system."

"No danger then?"

Helena seemed to understand what she meant. "I wouldn't say that. But we didn't need her system once it started raining. We were all quite safe, except for you." She bent over to kiss Myka's nose, then lifted her eyes to glare at the front of the trap. Her lips had compressed into a single line and her face had hardened with fury.

"Don't blame him, Helena." Myka was pleased to have gotten a fourth word out, and she wanted to explain why Pete shouldn't be blamed, but it seemed a complicated explanation to make in the rain and Helena looked so very fierce. But surely she was a good enough horsewoman to realize that Myka wouldn't have been able to control the horses – hadn't she seen her ride Lola?

"Shhh, don't fret," Helena said, her brows unscrunching and a gentle smile easing the line of her mouth.

The trap came to a stop, and Myka realized they were at the back of the ranch house. Claudia, Artie, Marta, and Liesl burst through the door and hurried to the trap. Myka felt Helena tighten her arms around her, and she thought she heard a warning rumble deep in Helena's throat. Carrying above the others' happy cries were Claudia's alternating shouts of "Is she all right?" and "She's gotta tell us what it felt like being blown sky high," the latter sounding as envious as it did amazed. Pete's voice, directing them to move aside, cut through Claudia's exclamations, and he appeared at the back of the trap, telling Helena quietly, "You have to let her go, Mrs. Wells, so I can carry her into the house." Myka felt Pete scoop her up, resting her easily against his chest as he carried her through the kitchen and dining room to the long, deep sofa in the parlor. He nudged aside the table in front of it and laid Myka on the cushions. He had no sooner reached for the blanket draped over the sofa's back to tuck it around her than Helena was next to her, saying curtly, "I have her now, Sheriff Lattimer."

Artie had joined them in the parlor, looking helpless, until Marta entered with a tea tray and nodded toward the table. He cleared it of its knick-knacks but seemed not to know what to do with them, looking helpless once more, until Marta sighed and removed the ceramic figures from his hands. Liesl followed close behind her aunt with another tray. She put it down, somewhat precariously on a corner of the table, and knelt beside Helena, her hand on Myka's leg, the blue eyes round with concern. With a wintriness that could have blanketed the grassfire with ice, Helena said, "If you're looking for someone to nurse, why don't you attend to Sheriff Lattimer? He looks a little worse for wear."

Liesl stiffened, and for the first time in their short acquaintance, Myka saw an emotion other than an eagerness to please cross her face. "If Myka doesn't need me, I'll be happy to look after the sheriff." Her tone was polite but edged with frost.

Unsure why she was needed to intercede but sensing it was required before another storm blew through the Donovan ranch, Myka struggled to a sitting position as both Helena and Liesl leaned forward to push her back down. She felt better, still sore, still too muzzy for her liking, and with an annoyingly insistent ringing in her ears, but capable of composing a sentence that included more than three words. "Liesl, I'm fine. Please take a look at the sheriff's wounds. I think one eye has shut." Focusing her attention on Helena and trying to keep the indulgence out of her voice, she said, "There's nothing to protect me from. I made it out, more or less in one piece."

They gave her the same doubting look, but Liesl pushed herself to her feet and motioned to Pete to follow her while Helena rubbed her back against the leg of the sofa, searching for a comfortable position. She gave up, shifting to rest her side against the sofa, allowing her hand to crawl up and possessively interlock with Myka's own. Almost tip-toeing her way across the room in her desire not to spill it, Claudia held a bowl out well in front of her. With a clattering of metal she pushed the trays on the table toward the opposite end and set the bowl down with elaborate care. "Marta said this'll make you feel better. If I were you, I'd hold out for some of Artie's scotch." Claudia looked meaningfully at Artie, who raised his hands as if to deny all acquaintance with hard liquor. "Beef broth's never done me much good." She screwed her face into a grimace, which quickly transformed into a mischievous grin as she poked Helena in the shoulder. "Are you going to feed her, too?" Helena didn't pretend to look indignant since her glance at the bowl and the furrowing of her brows indicated she was giving it consideration.

Alarmed, Myka shook her head, which she immediately recognized was a mistake as the room suddenly tilted before her. Slowly returning her head to its original position and hoping the room would do the same, Myka said, "I'm not hungry."

"She's looking about half-ready to force feed you, so I'd try it," Claudia advised her.

As Myka suffered Helena to give her the bowl and to position the spoon within easy reach and further endured the embarrassment of having Helena anxiously watch the journey of spoon to mouth and back again, she searched for something that would take the focus off her. "Have you heard from Mr. Jinks or any of the hands?"

"Jinksy came to the house while Helena and the sheriff were searching for you. He saw the workshop explode, and he thought I was in it." Claudia looked down, the mischievous grin wiped away. When she raised her eyes, they were brimming with tears and guilt. "I'm so sorry, Myka, that you had to look for me. I should have said something to someone, but I was in such a hurry to get the cellar. . . ."

"No apologies are necessary," Myka said, looking for a place to put the bowl. Helena swiftly took it from her and put it on the floor, recapturing one of Myka's now unoccupied hands and twining their fingers together. "So, everyone is all right?"

"I think so. Jinksy said they had the cows grazing west of the creek today, so they weren't in any danger from the fire. Really, the only thing that was threatened was this." Claudia spun around, arms outstretched, encompassing the house.

"Interesting," Helena said softly. Myka glanced at her, but Helena appeared to be distracted by one of the many tears in her once-elegant dress.

Busily polishing his spectacles, Artie spoke from the wing-back chair in which he had taken refuge. "We should get Doc Collins to come out to take a look at her." He was glancing at Myka, but his words had been directed at Helena. Rehooking the temple pieces over his ears, he said, "I can send one of the hands for him."

Helena bristled. "I won't have that quack coming anywhere near her. Send someone for Leena." She paused, her frown deepening. "And have him find Warren Bering. Her father should know what happened."

Artie shrugged. "I'm not going to argue with you. I saw what happened to the sheriff." He eyed the bowl of beef broth on the floor and rose from the chair, unself-consciously patting his stomach. "I'll have Jinks send somebody. But first I'm going to see where Marta is with the food." Passing Claudia, who hovered near the sofa, shifting her feet and wanting only to be asked to help, he suggested, "Why don't you draw Miss Bering a warm bath?"

"I'd appreciate that, but you don't have to go to all that trouble," Myka said, taking in the state of her clothes, singed, torn, and muddy. "I'm ruining your sofa, though."

Claudia flicked her hand dismissively at the sofa. "I've never much liked it. And the bath's no work." She grinned. "I installed a boiler. We can use all the hot water we want." Appraising Myka, she said, "The only hiccup is a change of clothes. You're too tall for anything I have, and, well." She crimsoned, and her eyes wandered past Myka to a spot on the wall. "Not that you're not a fine woman as you are, but you're, um, too small for Liesl's clothes, if you know what I mean." She tapped her lips. "I think you might fit into some of Joshua's clothes, if you don't mind wearing men's clothing."

"Claudia, you don't have to –"

Claudia cut her off. "I think if he were here, he'd insist on it." She held out her hand to help Myka from the sofa. Helena jumped up, wrapping a completely unnecessary arm around Myka's back, but Myka had no desire for Helena to remove it.

"I don't think you should be taking a bath alone," Helena said. "You could get dizzy, and I'm not going to lose you now to a few inches of water in a bathtub."

There was nothing remotely teasing in her voice or in her grimly determined expression, but Myka was certain she was blushing as hard as Claudia had a few minutes earlier, unable to dislodge the image of sharing a bath with Helena. "I'll be fine," she said, wondering how many times she had used the word since Helena and Pete had found her.

"I can assist her," Liesl announced, escorting Pete into the parlor. She stared at Helena with not a little defiance. Pete took a seat in the chair Artie had vacated and nervously, repeatedly touched his face, as if dreading the possibility of having to leap between the two women. His face looked cleaner but no less battered, the angry red of his scratches and cuts unrelieved against the paleness of his skin.

Over my dead body. That was what Helena's stance shouted so loudly that Myka flinched, but her actual "I think not" was just as implacable.

"I'll watch over her," Claudia said, giving Helena a warning glance and raising a hand to hold off Liesl. She threaded her arm through Myka's and slowly led her out of the parlor and down a hallway. Liesl and Helena trailed after them, Helena saying more than once, "Claudia, you're going too fast. Take more care." Myka and Claudia simultaneously rolled their eyes at one another. Opening a door at the end of the hall, Claudia said, "Best bathtub in the place."

Myka was used to a tin bathtub that she would set on the kitchen floor. She would have had to start heating water for a bath hours earlier, and once she finished pouring the hot water into it, she would have to temper it with pails of cold water. It was a tedious process and never exact, and then there would be the need to ensure that the windows were covered and that her father stayed out of the kitchen. Baths in the Bering household were more chore than pleasure.

But this, she ran her hand along the porcelain rim of the tub, which was large enough that she thought she might be able to stretch out her legs rather than having to jackknife them under her, this wouldn't be a mere bath. It would be something she would remember and take out upon occasion, like Christmases when her mother was still alive or the first time she was given a book all her own. She played with the handles of the faucet and jumped when water began gushing into the tub. Immediately both Helena and Liesl were beside her, their hands knocking together as they tried to adjust the temperature.

Reappearing with a stack of folded clothing, Claudia shooed them away. "I'm the one in charge here. Go on, git." She put the clothing on a bureau painted white to match the color of the tub. "You're worse than cattle." There were sconces on the wall and Claudia fiddled with the knobs at their bases, bringing light to the room.

Helena lingered at the door, darting mutinous glances at Claudia until Myka placed a hand on her arm. "Go eat something. You look exhausted."

"My place is with you," Helena said loudly enough for Claudia to hear.

But Claudia ignored her, throwing handfuls of what looked like salt into the water. "No one else is going to take it," Myka said soothingly. When Helena stubbornly remained in the doorway, Myka said, "Please, Helena, I'll worry that you'll topple over if you stand here any longer." She gently pushed her out into the hall and stood, arms folded, as Helena would take a few steps, turn, see that Myka was watching her, and then repeat the process, each time looking so forlornly at her that Myka almost – almost - relented.

Only after Helena disappeared into the parlor, with one last lingering look, did Myka close the door. Claudia beckoned her to join her at the tub. "Smell," she ordered. Myka obediently sniffed the water and smiled at the scent, floral but not overpowering. "Just another one of my little inventions," Claudia said smugly. "It'll make your skin as soft as a petal, too."

Myka doubted that, but picturing the soap she was forced to use when she bathed at home, which had the color and consistency of candle wax and an odor like lye, she was going to keep an open mind about whatever it was Claudia had put into the bath. Claudia discreetly turned her back as Myka began to remove her dress, which was as friable as ash and permeated with the smell of it. Raising her leg over the edge of the tub, Myka swallowed a moan, noticing at the same time how mottled her skin was with welts and the reddened beginnings of bruises. She lowered herself into the water, biting her lip, but from pleasure this time, exhaling with a sigh once her head was resting against the back of the tub.

Claudia ventured a quick, shy look. "How's the water?"

"Perfect," Myka said dreamily.

And she might have dreamed because she was fairly certain she fell asleep more than once, waking when her head lolled to the side and she felt the cool porcelain against her cheek. Every once in awhile, Claudia would twist around to make sure that Myka's head was above water, but otherwise she left her alone, content to wait in silence, and for that Myka was grateful. The ringing in her ears wasn't as loud, but it was still there, and sometimes overriding it was a dull, muffled boom, and Myka would sit up and lift her hands out of the water to prove to herself that she was alive and not still flying away from the workshop, only imagining, in those few seconds left to her, that she was safe and bathing in the most wonderful tub.

Someone knocked at the door, and Myka's heart beat faster in the hopes it was Helena. She already missed her, and thoughts of having Helena cocoon her in the large white towel she saw on the bureau were flitting in and out of her mind.

"Claudia," Steve Jinks said through the door. "Can you come out here a minute?"

Claudia looked torn, but Myka smiled and inclined her head toward the door. Myka could hear the rise and fall of their voices but not their words. After a few minutes, Claudia slipped back into the room, no longer shy about looking directly at a Myka with bared shoulders, her expression troubled. "One of the hands. Steve and the rest of the men can't find him," she said. "The last anyone saw he was over in the area where the fire started. No one can figure out why – they weren't grazing the cattle there."

"I'm sure he's all right," Myka said in an attempt to comfort her.

"It's getting too dark to keep looking. If he doesn't make it back tonight, they'll start searching again tomorrow morning." Claudia took a deep breath and said with false cheerfulness, "Let's get you out of that tub. I'm surprised Helena hasn't kicked the door down already."

After a lot of awkwardness, which resulted in two towels falling into the bathtub, Claudia had Myka covered, swaddled more accurately, in a third one. "You don't need my help pulling a pair of pants on," Claudia said, walking backwards until she bumped against the door. "Marta's sure to have made a plate for you, and Helena and Liesl are probably fighting over who gets to feed you grapes. If we had any grapes."

Myka dressed herself with a slightly less than crippling amount of discomfort. The muscles in her chest and back and legs were stiffening now that she was out of the water, and her fingers were being uncooperative about buttoning Joshua's pants and shirt. They were a little long, and the pants could use a belt or a pair of suspenders, but they weren't a bad fit. She stifled a yawn, feeling that a fog had enveloped her once more. There was something that Claudia had said about the missing ranch hand that was niggling at her, but she couldn't remember what it was. The sleeves of the shirt hung over her hands; it looked like she was wearing white stockings on her arms. Rolling up her shirtsleeves, Myka went in search of her friends, Helena truly, wanting to hear Helena scold her for walking without assistance and to have her massage her sore calves. She hobbled into the dining room, where everyone except Helena was gathered around the trestle table.

Pete waved to her, and within a few minutes, Liesl was bringing her a plate heaped with beef and bread and potatoes, with a piece of pie slid in on the side. The hands and Pete were wolfing it all down, but the food was too pale, too dense, too indefinably something, and Myka, flushed and nauseous, had to put the plate down on the table. Something was wrong; Helena should have been attached to her side, coaxing her to eat. "Where's Helena?" No one heard her. This time she was louder. "Where's Helena?"

Unsuccessfully hiding her disappointment, although Myka wasn't sure whether it was about her untouched plate or the fact that Helena's name had been mentioned, Liesl said, "She went to lie down on the sofa in Artie's office."

"Where's Artie's office?" Myka crept painfully out of the room into the parlor. "Is it down that hallway?" She pointed to the hallway that held the marvelous bathtub.

Liesl, who had followed her, shook her head and pointed down the opposite hallway. "Second door on the right. I'll go look for you."

Myka held her back. "I'll go," she said firmly. She walked as quickly as she could, although her walking was largely a matter of dragging one stiff leg forward and then the other. Not bothering to knock on the door, she opened it. At one time the room had been a library. Bookshelves still lined the walls, and a massive fireplace took up the far end of the room. In front of the fireplace was a desk and against the wall opposite Myka there was a sofa; the fabric of the cushions was splitting, but it looked comfortable enough, except that Helena wasn't on it, and she wasn't in the room. A lamp on the desk had been lit, and ledgers were scattered on the surface; Myka was willing to bet that the ledgers hadn't been there earlier. Liesl followed her to the desk, and as Myka began to pick them up and study them, she said, "Let me get Artie. He can tell you what they are."

"They're payroll lists. What's the name of the hand who's missing?"

"Rudy," Liesl said. "Rudy Helllinger."

Myka searched for the name in the ledgers. The ledgers were organized by year, and Rudy was in this year's ledger and the previous year's ledger, but not in any other. "When did he start?" She realized as soon as she asked the question that Liesl wouldn't know the answer. Liesl had been in Germany eighteen months ago.

"A few weeks before Joshua died, I think," Claudia said from the doorway. Her eyes had grown big at the disarray on top of the desk. "But I don't see what that has to do with anything. Geez, is Artie going to have a fit or what?"

Myka put the ledger down and stepped back from the desk. MacPherson had planted a spy on the Donovan ranch, someone who would do his dirty work and then report back on its consequences. Helena had worried that MacPherson would grow more desperate as the end of the year approached and his guaranty came due. It hadn't been the storm that started the fire, which had threatened the ranch house but little else. Her eyes traveled up from the fireplace to the gun rack above it. Two rifles, she noted almost absently, but there was room for a third.

"Are those guns loaded?" She pointed to the rack. Her heart was hammering, and not with the sweet rapidity she had felt when, in the bathtub, she imagined Helena wrapping her, no, them in a towel.

"We're a working ranch," Claudia said disdainfully, "of course they're loaded. And there's extra shells in the desk."

"Get Pete," she said and lurched out into the hallway. She blindly made her way to a door, any door that would take her outside. She ended up on the verandah, far away from the barn, but she struggled down the steps, forcing her muscles to move beyond the point where they simply hurt to some foreign territory where she wanted to scream every time one leg swung past the other. A door banged and then Pete was beside her, grabbing her elbow.

"What's going on? You shouldn't be out here."

The sun hadn't completely set, but the horizon was only a lighter blue against the blue-black of the night. It would be a long, dark ride to the MacPherson ranch. Cold, too. The storm had ushered in a wind that hinted at the winter to come. For the first time, it felt like fall. "You need to saddle a couple of horses. We need to go after her."

"She who? Helena, I mean, Mrs. Wells?" Pete had his hands on his hips and didn't look like he would be hurrying to do anything Myka asked.

"Yes. We have to stop her." Myka tried to push him in the direction of the barn. "Go, do it, please."

"Myka, you're in no shape to be riding a horse anywhere."

"Then tie me to the goddamn saddle, but we're going."

Pete's hands slipped off his hips, and had it been any other time, Myka might have smiled at his shock. But it wasn't any other time, and all she could hear was Helena saying, "I would destroy anyone who tried to hurt you." It wasn't just her, it was Claudia, too. The protégé, the little sister, in some sense, the lost daughter as well.

"For the love of heaven," Pete cried, exasperated. "Would you tell me where we're going and why?"

Then Myka said, with a calmness she didn't at all expect to feel, "We're riding to the MacPherson ranch because Helena has gone there to kill him."


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has sexual content.

If she held her cup any tighter, it would shatter. But she was cold, and the cup was warm. The stove had been cold to the touch when she had staggered into the kitchen after her ride from the MacPherson ranch and she had had to restart the fire. She had needed to start a fire in the fireplace in her bedroom as well; the storm had cooled the house, and she had been shivering as she made her way up the stairs. By the time she had finished laying the logs in the grate, her fingers had gotten thick and stiff with cold, and she had fumbled several matches. It was an ornate and expensive fireplace, made out of a cream-colored marble and heavily sculpted, figures from classical mythology ravishing maidens and doing battle with monsters when they weren't doing battle with each other. It would be hours before the fire would fully warm the room, but it had already warmed the color of the marble, giving it the golden tinge of old parchment, and the light flickered over the mortals and immortals frozen in their acts of heroism and seduction, lending them the illusion of movement, Theseus plunging his sword into the Minotaur instead of eternally prolonging their embrace at its tip. There had been no room, apparently, to include the hero abandoning Ariadne as she slept. Where in literature did trusting young virgins not put their faith in some cocky adventurer with more bravado than common sense?

She had stared at the fire, recalling how unchanged the prairie had looked from a window in Claudia's kitchen, still brown and fissured by drought. It was as if she had never left, and then suddenly the prairie was alive before her, writhing in an agony of orange and red. It was the last moment of clarity she was to have until much, much later, those few seconds at that window in Claudia's kitchen looking out at a prairie engulfed in flames and realizing that Myka was out there in it. Trembling from the memory, she had turned away from the fireplace, wrapping her arms around her chest, and gone to draw her bath.

The water had been cold, but she hadn't wanted to take the time to warm it. She had sucked in a breath when she lowered herself into the tub. Her teeth chattering, she had doused her head again and again under the water, and each time she resurfaced and opened her eyes, she saw the workshop contract, as if it were shrinking before the threat of the fire – although the threat was vanishing under sheets of rain – and then swell, fire suddenly in it, lifting it up from the ground. The sound had been flat, like the report of a rifle, but it had grown louder and deeper as the walls and roof collapsed simultaneously. A woman started screaming, and she had wished only for someone to quiet the poor thing until she understood, when her breath had snagged on a sob and the awful noise stopped, that she had been the one screaming.

She had vigorously shaken her head then, sending water flying, as she tried to rid herself of the haunting conviction that all that had happened after the workshop exploded, finding Myka, holding her, crooning to her that she was safe, was the illusion, and that tomorrow, no, today, they would bring her home, burned and broken. Climbing out of the tub with such clumsy urgency that she had caught her foot on its edge and nearly sent herself sprawling onto the floor, she had yanked on a nightgown, impatiently tugging it over her wet and still shivering body. She had stumbled back to the kitchen, putting on a kettle for tea, and waited for the sheriff to come.

She was still waiting. Helena put the cup down and noticed that the sky was turning from black to gray. It must be near dawn. He should be arriving soon, Sheriff Lattimer with his gouged face. She had put the rifle on her desk in the library, unfired but its stock ruined. MacPherson hadn't been home, of course, which she would have known had she let herself think things through. But reaction, immediate and visceral, had been all she was capable of. When Claudia said that the fire had threatened only the house and the outbuildings, Helena hadn't thought her way to the same conclusion as much as she had felt it, as if she had sniffed it in the smoke-filled air or scratched it from the burned ground. Later, as Steve and Claudia worried about the disappearance of one of the hands, she had run to Artie's office, scurrying in her haste as if she had no more forethought than a mouse seeking its bolt-hole. There had been no careful searching of his desk; she had pillaged it, opening drawers at random and flinging their contents onto the desktop.

Her ride to the MacPherson ranch had been just as wild and heedless, and when no one opened the door to her pounding and bellowing of his name, she had taken the rifle and slammed it through a pane of glass, battering the frame. She had groped through the broken pane for the lock, kicking the door in for good measure. Tramping up and down the halls on each floor, she had shouted for him to come out and face her. No one had left his hiding place to see who she was or to plead through a closed door for her to leave; finally, an old woman, most likely his housekeeper, peered cautiously around a doorway. Helena had instinctively leveled the rifle at her, and, with a muffled squeal, the woman backed away, slamming the door shut. Helena wanted to think now that had she been more rational she would have apologized for terrorizing MacPherson's help, but she could still feel no shame for having thundered through his home.

Surely one of MacPherson's staff would have been looking for the sheriff, once she left, to tell him about the madwoman who had broken down the door and threatened their lives (although, really, only MacPherson's). And stolen a horse. She had ridden the Donovan horse too hard (which she had also stolen, although Claudia, charitably, would only consider her to have borrowed him) to continue riding him to Sweetwater, so she had taken the least skittish of MacPherson's horses and left him in an empty stall in the livery.

Her cup had cooled. She crossed the floor, trying not to let her bare feet touch any more of the cold floorboards than she had to. After pouring more hot water into the cup, indifferent to the fact that she wasn't letting the tea steep, she took a different seat at the table, one from which she could watch who came up to the back door. She didn't want to be surprised by the sheriff. This wasn't how she had envisioned her day ending when she had arrived in Sweetwater just after sunup. She couldn't remember how she had anticipated that the day might unfold, but it certainly wouldn't have involved grass fires and explosions and a rampage through MacPherson's house. The train from Pierre had no sooner pulled into the station than she had rushed from the car to the platform, paying a man to haul her trunks to the house, and gone directly to the livery to have the stableboy harness her horses to the buggy. She had passed the _Journal_ 's office without even looking at it. She hadn't dared to look at it, hadn't dared to see if Myka was visible through a window.

She had gifts for Claudia, chemicals and tools for her workshop, and, smugly believing that it would be the gift that Claudia would treasure most she had placed it on the seat next to her, a fossilized bone of a dinosaur, which she had begged from a collector – and paid a small fortune to acquire – who was an acquaintance of Mrs. Frederic. She had bought gifts for Artie and Steve and Marta and Liesl, too. Cigars for Artie and Steve and German chocolates for Marta and Liesl. Although Leena had said she didn't want Helena to bring her anything, Helena had collected for her medicines and surgical instruments so new that their steel still glinted. As for Freddie and the girls at the Spur, she had purchased for Freddie several new aprons and for the girls bolts of gaudy fabric that none of Sweetwater's merchants, including its milliner, would ever willingly order.

But most of her gifts were for Myka. Books, of course. Sets of Shakespeare and the Jacobean playwrights, American authors too, Irving and Cooper and Hawthorne. Translations of Balzac and Goethe. More than Myka and, most certainly, her father would ever feel comfortable accepting, but she had been unable to stop herself. Then there were the other gifts for her. Ones that made Helena's heart skip a beat every time she looked at them or rubbed their material between her fingers. Dresses in colors that would bring out the red in her hair and deepen the green of her eyes. A shimmering emerald dressing gown that Myka would most likely think was too luxuriant for the modest, very modest, quarters she and her father occupied, and which her father would think was meant to transform his daughter into a jezebel. But even the most respectable of women wouldn't be ashamed to wear it, unlike the others buried deep in the bottom of one of Helena's trunks, nightgowns and shifts so sheer, some of them, that Helena could not only see her hand through the material but the blue lines of veins crossing her skin as well. Others were so revealing in their style or cut that a woman might declare she was better off wearing nothing at all, which would be, of course, the desired outcome. There had been no need for her to guess Myka's measurements or to call over some shop girl or model whose figure approximated hers. Weeks after Myka's visit to the ranch, Helena could still feel the press of their bodies in the bed after her nightmare and on the blanket next to the spring. She knew intimately how long Myka's legs were (very long), how wide her hips (not wide at all), and how big her breasts (neither big nor small but a perfect fit for her hand, she had realized as they lay tangled in her sheets.)

She frequently imagined Myka in the nightgowns, although she couldn't actually imagine the scene in which she would give them to her. Only a lover, or presumptive lover, would present her with such daringly intimate apparel, yet Helena's mind seemed to stutter on the word. She recognized the sad irony of her embarrassment because, at one time, she had been willing to be anyone's lover if he had the right price. But almost from the moment Myka had joined her in the pond, as unself-conscious about her nudity as if she had selected it from a wardrobe, Helena had been running from her. When she had felt Myka’s hand between her breasts, the flat of the palm a warm, light pressure against her sternum, like a bird nestling against her skin, Helena had been transfixed, uncertain whether she should remain where she was or, as would have happened in other places and at other times, close the distance between them, turning so as to allow Myka's hand to slide over her breast. But when Myka had said, "I love you," she had become a bird, taking flight, beating against the water to push herself up and away. In less than an hour she had saddled Dantes and was riding north across a prairie treacherous in the dark, recklessly urging the horse to go faster, but it was a recklessness she understood; she was risking only muscle and bone.

Myka's recklessness, on the other hand, terrified her. To stand so calmly, smile so buoyantly, as if the saying of the words was the release of a burden rather than the assumption of one, Helena couldn't understand. Although Myka's hand never once strayed, fingers and thumb held tightly, decorously together between her breasts, Helena had felt as lightheaded and dizzy as she had at the spring when Myka had arched against her, offering her the column of her throat. Myka's was a queer kind of vulnerability, expressing in that immodest thrusting of her body a confidence that Helena would accept her surrender, leaving Helena to wonder who was seducing whom.

When Myka had nervously joked that Helena must take all her potential conquests to the spring, Helena had seen only Louisa, the times that Louisa had lain on a blanket or quilt with her superimposing themselves on this moment. But only for the space of a heartbeat or breath because, in the end, there was no true resemblance. Louisa, in her meekness and tractability, ever the compliant wife even with her lover, was a far cry from Myka, who, despite her hesitation, hadn't stopped canting her hips and legs against Helena and whose lips, after that breathy little laugh, remained parted, anticipating Helena's kiss. Louisa might have wanted a greater intimacy than what their two bodies were satisfied to achieve in the space of an afternoon, but she would have never demanded it. Feeling those pale green eyes searching her face, silently pleading for Helena to overlook her gaffe, Helena knew that Myka would demand nothing less of her than that she act as an equal partner in whatever was to happen. There would be no playing the role of the world-weary libertine, or courtesan, for that matter. Having mastered the art of hiding herself away just as her lovers believed they were losing themselves in her, Helena wasn't sure that. . . being present, fully present. . . was something she could give.

Masking her fear and self-doubt as offended dignity, Helena had stalked off through the grove of trees with her sketch pad and charcoal. Once on the other side, she had made only some desultory sketches of the prairie before she started drawing Myka, the drowsy, dreaming expression on her face as she had arched herself toward Helena, expecting Helena to kiss her awake. The drawing was rough and smeared, Helena' hand shaking from an unfamiliar mix of desire, relief, and regret. She hadn't been able to bring herself to relent, not upon seeing Myka win over Dantes or watching her continue to charm Zeb during dinner. When she had gone to the pond later that evening, it had been as much from a desire to escape a house suddenly become too small as a desire to escape the heat. And there Myka had found her and had said those words, which, more than anything, made Helena want to be a ghost in her own life, content to occupy its fringes, invisible and no more capable of being held or possessed than air.

Once in New York, the congestion of people, noise, and grime had slowed her flight, and she had felt solid, corporeal once more, the weight of visits to attorneys, to the businesses she still shared with Mrs. Frederic grounding her. She welcomed the paperwork the attorneys never seemed to stop producing, the complaints and inefficiencies that had flourished in the factories and shops in her absence. Myka's devotion was what seemed insubstantial now, her "I love you" only a whisper in Helena's ear. Though Helena thought of her constantly and bought her gifts without restraint, it was a manageable preoccupation, the kind of distraction that could be squeezed between meetings and appointments, Myka no more than a figure in a photograph, had Helena had a photograph of her, something she could take out and look at when she wanted and put away when something more pressing required her attention. It was allowable, now, to let herself be sentimental about Myka, to run her fingers along the spines of the books she had bought her and imagine Myka's delight when she saw them. And as for the feelings that buying the scandalous nightgowns and shifts engendered, Helena could have those attended to. It would be difficult, as a woman, to arrange for that type of companionship but not impossible. She didn't consider being with someone else for an hour or two a betrayal, particularly as there was nothing, no promise or obligation, to be violated. It was a need to be met, or ignored, that was all. Helena chose the latter, not because it was the more honorable but because it was the more expedient. Or so she told herself. Besides, there was no sense in complicating a simple act by wishing and fantasizing that her partner was someone else.

So she filled the dead moments of her days, when the attorneys had closed their offices and the factories and shops were quiet and Myka's words threatened to become louder in her ear with plays and dinners. Most often Josef was her escort. He was a young man now. Helena still couldn't place his age, somewhere between 15 and 25, the face that had always looked either too old or too young for its age combining worry lines and cynical smirks appropriate for a middle-aged man with an avidity suggesting a youth yet to make his mark. He was something of a sport; his suits were loud and he squired her to the theaters and restaurants with a swaggering possessiveness that suggested she was his mistress. It was more amusing than irritating, and despite the show he put on for the public, he treated her as he had always treated her, with a bluntness tempered by a healthy dose of fear. He knew she wasn't above suddenly wrenching his arm if she thought he deserved it. But he was, in the main, trustworthy, he worked for Mrs. Frederic, and while she would tolerate a certain number of side arrangements – as she told Helena repeatedly, there was always dross in the mining of gold –ensuring that her interests were served always had to come first, and Josef served them ably enough.

They had gone to a Brownlee play one evening late in her visit, although Helena hadn't known then that it was late in her visit or that she would be purchasing a ticket the next day to take her back to Sweetwater. She had reserved a box, as she usually did, and Josef's swagger was especially pronounced as he guided her to a chair. He was a great admirer of Mr. Brownlee, finding him to be "crackin' smart and funny as a top," which, in Josef's unique vernacular, was high praise for a playwright. Josef was more attentive than usual to her, appreciative that he could enjoy the play from a box rather than the cheap seats of a Sunday matinee.

While Josef laughed uproariously at the jokes, Helena didn't find them to be among Mr. Brownlee's best efforts and, in search of distraction, she glanced around the theater, her eyes lighting on a box across the width of the stage from hers. The man's head was bowed, as if he were studying his program, but Helena could see his companion without any difficulty. The woman was young and pretty, with a heart-shaped face framed by blond ringlets, but there was a worn quality to her features, as though life had already rubbed up against them too hard. Helena took her for a chorus girl, and the girl's awestruck expression indicated that this theater was several rungs up from the ones she was acquainted with. Just as Helena's glance was about to settle elsewhere, the man raised his head, and heavy-lidded eyes opened wide in surprise.

Henry. The hair was grayer but the head no less leonine. She was chagrined she hadn't recognized him sooner since his head had rested on a pillow next to hers for the better part of five years. He was moving his chair back and beginning to stand up, his eyes never straying from her. Helena tapped an oblivious Josef on the shoulder of his green-and-tan checked suit coat. She murmured Henry's name into his ear, and he almost bolted up from his seat, pushing Helena through the back of the box with an urgency that was hardly gentlemanly. He had little desire to be cornered by Henry Tremaine with Henry Tremaine's former mistress on his arm. With a shrill whistle, he flagged a hansom for them outside the theater.

"If you need to move somewheres else to be shut of him, I can help." Josef volunteered as he helped her down from the carriage in front of her hotel, but she had only shaken her head and pressed more money than was required for the reservation of a theater box into his hand, telling him to enjoy the rest of Mr. Brownlee's play.

She wasn't afraid that Henry would find her or, rather, she wasn't afraid of what would happen if he did. Other than shedding the name Charlotte Ramsey, she had done little to hide herself after she had left New York three years ago. For a man of Henry's resources, she would have been easy to find. Perhaps he had and concluded that anyone who willingly left New York for some obscure hamlet in Dakota Territory wasn't worth reclaiming. But she had hurried from the theater and was now haphazardly throwing things into trunks as if she were on the run from him. She drew a breath and looked around the room. It was a hotel room, nicer than most, but only that, and this was no longer her city, if it ever had been. Just as Henry was no longer her. . . benefactor. She had never thought of returning to him, even during her loneliest moments in Sweetwater, and there had been many. While she might choose to live in New York again someday, it wouldn't be as his mistress. Nor would she be returning to participate in any more of Leena and Mrs. Frederic's mystical schemes. Sweetwater was the repayment of her debt to them, and after MacPherson was thwarted or driven from town or buried under the prairie for all she cared, she would be free.

She sat on the edge of the bed. Free to go "somewheres else" as Josef had phrased it. Not quite. There was the matter of Myka, and the uneasy, paradoxical sense that there would be no freedom to enjoy without her. Helena could continue to mistake fleeing for being free, as she had for years now, but she would be no less tied to Myka for all that she ran from her. Like Christina's, Myka's absence would be no hole in her life but, instead, something massive, inert, something she would have to surmount every day. While Helena mourned Monika and Henry, she could put them aside for weeks, months at a time. Stubborn, insistent Myka wouldn't be so readily banished. She was no "manageable preoccupation" as Helena had so fatuously thought just days before. With a laugh, Helena flung herself backward on the mattress. She might imagine herself as a bird taking flight from that pond and pride herself on the great beating of her wings but she could fly only as far and as high as the cord that Myka held let her. And she had gone as far as the cord would allow her to go.

It was hard not to feel something pulling at her, tugging at her on the train back to Sweetwater, and although the sight of its weathered buildings, stark and unlovely outside the windows of the car, produced in her no fonder appreciation of it, the knowledge that Myka was there was enough to have her shine an especially silly smile on the bank, the general store, even MacPherson's law office. Until she learned that Myka was also at the Donovan ranch, she had told herself that she would stop by the _Journal_ on her way home; surely then she would be composed enough to talk to her, maybe even confident enough to invite her to dinner the following evening. (Of course, she would have to ensure that Leena would be willing to cook it and that Myka's father, the old curmudgeon, wouldn't prevent her from going. Either that or Helena would have to invite the both of them, which made her frown.)

Claudia being on one of her fossil hunts, Helena had amused herself by annoying Artie at his accounts, moving on, when he finally discovered that the best way to rid himself of her was to patiently answer her questions, to the kitchen, where, German chocolates notwithstanding, Marta still viewed her with suspicion and interrupted as often as she dared Helena's idle conversation with Liesl. Liesl informed her with great pleasure that Myka was staying for supper, and Helena silently made plans to invite herself to dinner as well, disliking the anticipatory gleam in Liesl's eyes.

And then she had looked out the window. She had no clear memory of what followed. At some point Marta or Liesl must have alerted Artie because Helena remembered running with him and Liesl toward the barn, until she realized that Claudia wasn't with them. Claudia hadn't been with them, hadn't been in the house for hours; she could still be out on the prairie hunting for fossils or she could have hauled her treasures to her workshop. Helena had spun around and taken off in the opposite direction, her lungs and legs aching as she raced toward the shop. A trap crested the rise, and she saw Myka, bonnet-less as usual, on the seat. She would think later that they had stared at each other as the fire smoked and popped in a wavering line not far behind the trap, fanning out as if it had been spilled onto the grass. But there had been no time for staring. Myka had only glanced at her, reading the fear in her face, and then she had jumped down from the trap and was running toward the workshop.

No, no, no, no, it wasn't supposed to be Myka who ran to the workshop. She should be the one letting the trap fly down the rise, she should be the one forcing the frightened horses to stop; Helena would have run to her and hugged her and kissed her, yes, kissed her like a proper lover and confessed to being a bloody fool about everything. But it was the sheriff instead, already looking ashamed that he wasn't the one in the workshop, shouting for Artie and Marta and Liesl to get into the trap. As he shouted, water began to squirt up from the ground, and the horses shied, and Helena believed that nature itself had gone mad until Claudia emerged from the storm cellar, shouting "Is it working?" Helena wasn't sure whose ears she most wanted to box, Claudia's or the sheriff's, but she couldn't spare the time to box either one's because she was running toward the workshop again, her breath tearing through her throat and the "No, no, no, no" that had run through her mind minutes before replaced by "Please, please, please." Her feet were still moving after the sheriff grabbed her arm, and she felt them scrabble for purchase as she was yanked hard against him. She had first hit him then to make him let go of her. But he had held on, saying "I can't let you do that." He might have also said, "She'd never forgive me for letting you go after her," but she couldn't hear anything above her own shouts of rage. Not even the thunder, not at first. The rain fell hard, stinging, like pebbles hitting her skin, and she and Pete had looked at each other, stupefied, before simultaneously turning to look at the workshop, waiting for Myka to come out.

She should have known what would happen long before she heard that horrible loud report, like thunder but not thunder, like gunfire but more like a hundred guns being fired at the same time. She had started running again and he had grabbed her arm again, this time to tell her to wait until he brought the trap around. Whirling around, she had punched him. She kept on punching him and kicking him, abusing him with words she had never said aloud unless someone had paid her first. And he had let her beat him, not raising his hands to defend himself; the bruises on her face were from losing her balance and crashing into his chest, the points of the star on his shirt digging into her temple and cheek. She had stopped only when she was crying too hard to lift her arms, and, not bothering to wipe the blood from his face, he had left her to retrieve the trap. She had climbed onto the seat beside him as, his voice hoarse, he shouted at the horses and slapped the reins. She let him fight their reluctance to cross the still steaming ground, dully scanning the burned grass around the remains of the workshop.

She wasn't thinking of the fire or the explosion or Myka, she was back in the squalid room she had been renting in London when Christina had taken ill, where Charles had met with her twice, the first time to set the terms and the second to take Christina away. The room had been furnished with an ancient bed and an equally ancient chair, its windows gray with dirt and patched with wood. Christina's fever had broken, but she was still fretful, whimpering and plucking at her gown. Helena had paled, but she ignored her daughter's distress as she placed her in Charles' outstretched arms. He had said "Helena" in a tone she hadn't expected, quiet and sympathetic and oddly pleading. She hadn't wanted to look at him, but he was her brother, and she met his eyes reluctantly. Although his eyes were as dark as hers, she thought she saw herself, small and forlorn, reflected in them, but the illusion passed, and with a twisted smile, she extended her hand. "I believe you owe me something." If she had thought to make him angry, enough so that the awful pitying expression on his face would disappear, she had misjudged. It only deepened, but he shifted Christina, awkwardly, unused to holding babies, and took from a pocket a folded slip of paper, laying it on her palm. He turned away from her, Christina still whimpering against his chest, and at the door, he had looked at her over his shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said, as if he knew better than she that she would never entirely leave this room, never stop reliving this moment, never stop breaking herself over it. "I'm sorry" was what Pete had endlessly repeated as she flailed against him, trying to complete the breaking that had started all those years ago. But here she was, whole, if a little bruised, sitting beside him as the trap wheeled between pieces of the workshop and across bare, blackened ground, while the world around her was in fragments.

The sound of the door banging against the wall startled her, and the teacup jumped in her hand. She felt a stab of irritation, could that lummox of a sheriff do nothing quietly? She was ready to fix him with one of her murderous glares when she realized that the lummox who had barged into her kitchen was Myka. She sprang up from the table, but Myka was already limping to a chair. She was wearing a man's coat, which smelled of hay and cattle and was much too big for her; the fingers that poked out from the ends of the sleeves were red and chapped-looking from the cold. When Helena would have touched her, Myka said in an equally frozen voice, "Sit down," and as an afterthought, "Please."

Helena sat. She reached out to caress Myka's hand; she couldn't help herself, she needed to be reassured that she was awake and not having one of her nightmares. They always began happily enough, seeing Myka alive and more or less unharmed, for instance, but after that, they would devolve into evermore terrifying scenes until Helena awoke, crying or screaming. If this were a nightmare, Myka should be on the verge of bursting into flames or disintegrating into a pile of ash, and Helena needed to know that the woman at the table with her wasn't ash. Grabbing Myka's hand, she was appalled at how could it was, and she instinctively began to rise from the table again, intent upon getting her a cup of tea.

Myka flexed her hand, loosening Helena's grip. "I don't want anything," she said. "I need you to sit."

So Helena sat, nervously rubbing the top of one foot with the other. She needed to put more wood into the stove, the kitchen was developing a chill. Or perhaps it was only the icy seriousness of Myka's face, and she did look very, very serious. Helena had never seen her look this serious before, but her seriousness held a peculiar tension. It was apparent in the hunching of her shoulders under the coat, in the constant, minute movement of her lips, and in the flatness of her gaze, which had never once left Helena, and finally Helena understood that Myka was very, very angry.

"How. . . how did you get here?" Helena asked, because one of them needed to start the conversation.

It was a silly question and stammered out, but Myka chose to answer it. "I rode a horse, Helena. I rode two horses. One to get to MacPherson's ranch and, then, when we found out you weren't there, one to get here."

"You shouldn't have ridden, not in your condition," Helena said automatically, and Myka rewarded her scolding with a flicker of a smile. Helena knew better than to take any comfort in it.

"Someone had to stop you, or try to stop you." Myka began to remove the coat. She winced as she eased it off her shoulders, and Helena made a motion as if to help her, but at Myka's glare, Helena stilled. "I'm tired of smelling like a barn," Myka said, draping the coat over the back of a neighboring chair. She folded the sleeves of her shirt, inspecting the material with great care as she rolled it back. Focused on tucking in the ends of the sleeves, she asked, "Would you have done it, if he had been there?"

Helena realized that she should take more time to consider the question, but that wouldn't be honest, and she wanted to be honest. "Yes, I would have shot him."

Myka nodded, as though she hadn't expected a different answer. "Do you know what would have happened to you if you had killed him?"

Helena wasn't quite being addressed as a child, but she had always resented sentences that began with "Do you know." Of course she knew. She said evenly, "I would have been arrested and eventually sent to prison."

This time, Myka swung her head from side to side. She looked up, and although the kitchen was as gray as the sky outside, Helena thought her eyes looked suspiciously bright. "Maybe in New York, but not out here. You would have been arrested, and Pete would have put you in his jail. But the town would be angry, and people would start talking. They don't like James MacPherson, but he's a man and a powerful one. You're a woman, but you don't act like any woman they know, so they like you even less. Some hothead would start shouting about not waiting for justice to be done and others would join him, and then all that would be between you and a lynch mob would be Pete."

Helena swallowed. "I know that the rules out here are different, but I am a woman."

Myka said flatly, "You're a whore, a whore who would have killed one of the town's leaders, and that's all that they would see."

Helena felt her cheeks flush. She had called herself and been called a whore so many times that she thought it had become as neutral a description as shopkeeper or rancher. But to hear Myka say it, in such a hard, cold way, she heard all the contempt that it carried, that it had always carried and that she had always turned upon herself. She had rarely felt its lash, perhaps because it had so many layers of self-disgust to penetrate, but she felt it now. "Then I would expect the town could feel comforted that it carried out the saying that the only good whore is a dead whore."

"Don't make light of this, Helena."

"Hanged or imprisoned, what would it matter?" she demanded. "I would never see the light of day again, in any event."

"It matters to me," Myka shot back. "If you're going to be stupid enough to try to kill him again, shoot him in the leg. I would rather visit you in prison than bring flowers to your grave."

She gave Helena a wry smile, and Helena tentatively smiled in return. "You may be visiting me there sooner than you think. I'm sure Sheriff Lattimer will be arriving to arrest me for trespassing and stealing and frightening old women and who knows what else. MacPherson will undoubtedly add to the list once he returns."

"Pete and I smoothed things over at the house. You'll be expected to pay for the damage you caused, but none of MacPherson's employees seem to like him very much, so they won't be telling him more than what they have to. There will be no arrests today."

Myka was still smiling, and the flatness had left her eyes, but Helena could still see the tension in her shoulders and those red, chapped fingers were moving around aimlessly on the table. "And what about the old woman I nearly shot?" she asked lightly. "I doubt that she's forgiven me."

"Pete gave her the cash he had on him. It seemed to quiet her down."

"I'm rather in his debt, it appears," Helena said. "When we thought you were dead, I. . . blamed him."

Myka's fingers moved more quickly on the table, and she looked away from Helena. "He didn't think I should ride on to Sweetwater, but I needed to know that you were safe. He said to tell you not to feel bad about what happened, that he knew firsthand what grief could do to someone."

"It's not something I care to experience again, seeing Claudia's workshop explode and believing that you were in it," Helena said softly.

"Like I felt when I couldn't find you in Claudia's house and saw the rifle missing from the rack," Myka responded, and the hardness was back in her voice.

Helena reacted to the tone, not to the words. "Nothing like at all," she corrected sharply. "I thought you were dead."

"I thought you were as good as dead." The rejoinder was just as quick, just as sharp.

"Oh, that's right," Helena said waspishly. "You had visions of the town whore swinging from a tree branch. As you can see, I'm quite all right but still a whore, I'm afraid." She needed to stop talking, right now. She wasn't even angry, she was . . . she didn't know what she felt. Rattled, shaken, by the fire, by believing that Myka was dead and then discovering that she wasn't, by wanting to kill MacPherson and then actually riding to his ranch to kill him, but most of all by the one little thing among all those more significant ones, Myka calling her a whore. You couldn't love a whore, want her, yes, but not love her, and maybe Myka had realized that in the weeks Helena had been gone. "Don't worry, I won't hold you to what you told me when we were in the pond. It was the heat, darling, and, frankly, perhaps a little inexperience on your part."

Myka scrubbed furiously at the table. Eventually she stopped and pushed back her chair. She stood up with care and reached for the coat. "I'm going to go home. It's been a long, very upsetting day for both of us." She stiffly walked toward the door.

Helena followed her, although she knew the wiser course of action was to remain at the table. "You asked me at the spring how many lovers I had brought there, do you remember? Do you want to know, Myka, how many people I've been with? It would probably take the better part of the day to tell you, and those would be the ones whose names I remember."

Myka bowed her head against the doorframe, the door already partially open. Without moving it from the frame, Myka turned her head just enough so that she could look at Helena. "Who else would run a brothel, Helena? I may be inexperienced, but I'm not naïve. And it doesn't matter to me, what you used to do or how many you did it with. What matters to me is what you do now, how you feel now." More fiercely, she said, "I don't want to take back anything that I've told you. I thought I had lost you earlier tonight, do you understand? You were doing something impulsive and wrong-headed, and for all I knew MacPherson would be there and have his own gun and kill you first. And then I come here, after falling off the horse at least three times on the way, and I see you, in your nightgown, drinking tea as if nothing has happened." Myka had stepped away from the door and her head was up and Helena could almost count the nicks and scratches in her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion, but the pale green of her irises seemed lit from within by her intensity. "You're safe and MacPherson's not dead and I didn't lose you, but I wanted to strangle you. Just strangle you," she repeated. But she faltered midway through, as if she weren’t sure strangling was really what she had in mind.

It wasn't strangling that Myka had in mind. The part of Helena that had learned to recognize and then heighten someone else's desire knew that, probably would have known it sooner if the rest of her, the rest that she walled off when she was alone with a client, her own needs and emotions, such as they were, and, when she was around Myka, all the ridiculously tender things she wanted to say, hadn't obscured its cool practicality. But that part still had enough force to prompt her to say into Myka's tired, puzzled face, "So strangle me."

And then that part was lost, lost as Myka pushed her back farther into the kitchen, stumbling into her at the same time as she stopped to pull Helena, not gently, to her, irretrievably lost as Myka's lips closed roughly, awkwardly on her own and as she strained up to wrap a hand around Myka's neck to crush Myka's mouth harder against hers. She knew what would come next, all the possible variants, but she heard herself cry out in surprise as Myka, who had been fumbling one-handed with the collar of her nightgown, leaned away from her to bring both hands up and rip the collar open. Myka paused, at Helena's cry and at the sight of the torn nightgown, and Helena, in the space of those few seconds, wished this were happening differently, not for her own sake but for Myka's. The blanket at the spring, which had smelled a little too strongly of horses, would have been better than the kitchen, which had nothing of even the romance of cooking about it to Helena's mind, and for another second, Helena thought about stopping them, if only to suggest they leave the kitchen. That was what she would have done if someone had been paying her, that was what she would have done if she had been with Monika because, really, there was going to be no comfort in being intimate in the kitchen. But as Myka bent her head to nip, not gently, at Helena's neck and as her hand continued to tug at the torn collar, tearing it further, Helena sensed something that was heavy and light at once rising within her, rising so fast she thought it might take the top of her head with it, and she could hardly catch her breath for wanting to press Myka ever closer, and neither comfort nor romance seemed very important.

They had been shuffling around the kitchen until Myka blindly backed her up against a wall, and Helena pulled up her nightgown, rucking the material around her hips. "Please, dear God, Myka, please." She was begging, just as she knew she would when Myka had first touched her hands, working the printer's ointment into her skin. Begging was undignified and showed a lack of control and it was the one thing she had never been able to pull off very well when she had been paid to beg and whine and plead. She hadn't been able to keep a thread of laughter from her voice because it was absurd to want something so transitory so desperately. Yet now she was begging and there was nothing comical about it because if Myka didn't touch her soon Helena would strangle her, she really would. As if sensing Helena's thoughts or perhaps just wanting to play with her, which Helena would be able to respect when she was calmer, Myka drew back, eyes searching Helena's face. But Myka wasn't trying to tease her, her expression a reflection of what Helena knew was her own, desire and frustration and confusion. "I want," she began hesitantly. More strongly, she said, "I want –"

"Yes," Helena hissed, thrusting her hips up and forward, and with more energy than grace, although Helena found even the rough, misplaced poking arousing, Myka found her way in, and Helena cried out again. It shouldn't have felt this intense, this new, but it did, and Helena couldn't stop from crying out. She had been taken against walls and doors and, more than a few times, against the backs of theater boxes, and it was always awkward and usually, blessedly, quick, and sometimes depending on her position and the man's, she would be able to see over his shoulder and she would count the flowers on the wallpaper until he was done. It was still awkward, more so because Myka was having to hold her up, but Helena wasn't trying to look at the wallpaper, couldn't focus enough to look at the wallpaper, she could come like this, which was a revelation in itself, but she didn't want to come like this, when all she could feel of Myka was the smooth finish of her shirt and the rough weave of her trousers, and just the thought that Myka was taking her wearing a man's shirt and trousers was enough to make her cry out louder. Jesus. "Not here," she gasped.

After a clumsy disentanglement, with Myka groaning more from pain as Helena clutched her back to prevent herself from falling to the floor, they trip-stumbled to the table, Helena losing the rest of her nightgown but not really losing it because Myka had simply torn it away from her with a snarl. A snarl that had propelled Helena into tearing at Myka's shirt, with strange little whines and yelps of frustration that Helena hadn't known she could make. Before she pushed her back onto the table, Myka had found her coat and spread it on the top, and as Helena breathed in the scent of hay and cattle and noticed that the back door was half-open allowing anyone coming up to the kitchen a full view of what was happening, she realized that she didn't care that she had started begging again or that she was rocking her hips with a wildness that the former Helena Wells, the one who had existed before Myka stormed into her kitchen, wouldn't have believed possible.

As Myka leaned above her, the green eyes bright and wide with desire, she said with all the confidence she had lacked before, "I want you."

And all of the parts of Helena were in synchrony now and she had no doubt that she was fully present, with Myka, in this room, and she said, "So take me." Not ungently, Myka thrust into her, and Helena didn't know how much of Myka was in her, only that she could take more, and she begged and pleaded, unashamed, for more, and Myka, her own breathing ragged and uneven, moved harder, faster, farther, and Helena dug her fingers into her, feeling Myka's skin, warm and pliable and ever so alive, and Myka groaned and that . . . bubble, Helena didn't know what else to call it, but heavy, as though the bubble was weighted, began to expand in her chest, making her arch higher. Her cries were higher too and prolonged, as if the bubble was pushing them out before she was quite ready, and the rhythm that she and Myka had established became rougher and more uneven and she tugged at Myka as if she wanted to envelope her whole, which she thought might be able to do because she had never been this wet this long for anyone. The bubble was pressing up against her lungs and her cry was so thin and high she felt it slicing through her, through the bubble, and all the parts of her that had been in such marvelous synchronization before fell away from each other, speeding outward, and she sensed that this must be what it felt like to explode or shatter or break, before she issued one more cry, soft and surprised, in acknowledgment that it hadn't been so terrifying, the breaking. She might be in fragments, but the world around her was whole. The kitchen was all of one piece, amazingly enough, and Myka stretched out on the table beside her, half-undressed, with the dreamiest of expressions on her face. Helena closed her eyes and groped for Myka's hand. It was warm and slightly sticky, and it squeezed back. Helena placed it between her breasts. She could hear Myka shifting, rolling onto her side to lay her palm flat on Helena's chest. "You love me," she said, and Helena could hear the smile in Myka's voice. Helena said nothing, letting the quiet, regular beating of her heart answer for her.

 


	15. Chapter 15

Helena frowned, first at the skillet on the stove and then at the bowl of eggs in her hand. It was too late for breakfast, but too early for the noon dinner, and frying eggs seemed a less daunting task than preparing a meal. She had greased the skillet – after systematically removing the contents from several cupboards, she had finally located the lard – all she needed to do was crack the eggs over the skillet. She had seen Leena do it many times, deftly and with no pieces of eggshell dropping into the eggs, but assuming she was lucky enough not to have to fish out eggshell from the skillet, she had no idea how long to cook the eggs. Leena had told her, more than once, but Helena had paid no attention, believing that if the time came when she had to cook her own eggs, she would do without. But this morning was different, and if the events of the previous day, previous hours more like, hadn't changed her, she could at least resolve to act as if she had changed. Myka was upstairs, sleeping in her bed, sleeping so soundly that when Helena, upon waking, had stretched and groaned, loudly and involuntarily, certain that the kitchen table must bear her imprint, she hadn't stirred. The eggs, the coffee, which so far was proving to be a successful effort, these were for her.

The lard popped in the skillet, and a drop stung Helena's hand, almost causing her to lose her grip on the bowl. Someday someone would invent a skillet that wouldn't require lard or bacon drippings to prevent food from sticking to it; she might suggest the idea to Claudia. The door opened, and Leena stopped just inside the kitchen, sniffing the air and looking with wary surprise at Helena. "You're cooking," she said in disbelief. She had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and her face was pinched with cold.

"Trying to, darling," Helena admitted cheerfully. "But I've forgotten how long I'm supposed to let eggs cook." She was hoping Leena might interpret it as a request for assistance, but Leena was striding through the kitchen, the blanket a bundle under her arm, saying no more than "Not as long as you think you should. They'll get rubbery." Her voice floated back from the hallway. "I was at the Jenningses.' False labor." From the amount of noise Leena made on the stairs, Helena could have sworn a troop of cavalry had galloped up the staircase, and she winced at the possibility that the noise might have awakened Myka. She couldn't remember if she had left the door to her bedroom open when she came downstairs on her grand campaign to make breakfast. Given Leena's much quieter descent and the same look of wary surprise on her face when she reentered the kitchen, Helena concluded that she had.

"Myka's in your bed."

"Yes, she is." Helena couldn't remember ever smiling so broadly, except, perhaps, when her grandfather took her along on his tours of his factories. "Yesterday I sent a man for you. There was a fire out at the Donovan ranch, and Myka was hurt. Not seriously, but I still want you to examine her." Helena took two eggs and cracked them between her fingers. Except for the large piece of eggshell that fell into the skillet and the fact that the yolk of one egg liberally covered her hand, she could call it a success.

"I would say you've already done that." Leena sighed and passed her a towel. "Your man didn't find me. I was at the Jenningses' house since yesterday afternoon." Taking the bowl of eggs from Helena, she shooed her away from the stove. "What happened at the ranch?"

Helena sat at the table, drawing her nightgown and robe closer to her. She noted absently that the material of this nightgown was thicker than the material of the nightgown Myka had so impetuously torn. She would have to stop wearing it; she would stop wearing any nightgown that Myka couldn't rip off her, she decided. Extending her arm, she ran her fingers over the area of the table where Myka had lain her down and –

"Helena, what happened at Claudia's?" Leena repeated, cracking more eggs into the skillet. "Helena," she said again, placing the bowl on the counter.

Helena wanted to remember Myka leaning over her, Joshua Donovan's fine white shirt slipping off her shoulders, half its buttons missing. But she forced herself to remember the workshop lifting from the ground, as if it were one of Claudia's rockets, and seeing Myka, looking so small and crumpled among the debris. She shuddered. "The grass fire caused Claudia's workshop to explode just as Myka was leaving it."

Leena grabbed another towel and lifted the skillet away from the flame. "What was she doing in there?" Sending Helena a long and meaningful look, she asked, "And what is she doing here, in your bed, when she should still be at the Donovan ranch resting?" Her expression anxious and concerned, she said, "Never mind, I'll leave you to wrestle with your conscience about that. I need to go up and see her. She most likely has a concussion, but she could have internal injuries as well." She hurried out of the kitchen and, hesitant and uncertain, Helena followed her.

Helena was sure that Myka had been asleep when she had gotten up. In fact, she had thought she could hear the faintest of snores, a tiny, almost kittenish, rumbling, and she had been tempted to press a kiss to Myka's temple, but she had been afraid that it would wake her. Myka wouldn't have been snoring if she had lapsed into unconsciousness. If Myka had been seriously injured, she wouldn't have been able to ride to the MacPherson ranch and then on to Sweetwater, let alone handle her, touch her the way she had – Helena broke into a run, charging up the stairs, and burst into her bedroom, the door slamming shut behind her.

Leena was crouched at the side of the bed, inspecting Myka's ribs, while Myka tried to hold the sheet so that it covered both breasts. With a warning glance, Leena said, "Helena, you need to wait outside." Myka, her face still slack with sleep, struggled to focus on her, and Helena, ignoring Leena's obvious displeasure, sat on the bed next to Myka and brushed some straggling curls from her cheek. The green eyes sharpened only to soften at the touch. Myka unclenched one hand from the sheet and tucked it under Helena's chin, lifting it so Helena's eyes could do nothing other than meet hers. "I'm still alive. Now do what Leena said."

Helena scoffed but rose from the bed. "Or what?" She looked at Leena. "You'll slip a purgative into my tea?" Leena returned her look impassively. "I'll be just outside the door," Helena said with a sternness that caused Leena only to roll her eyes.

"Hovering anxiously, no doubt," she said. "Go, shoo." She fluttered the back of her hand at Helena.

Helena paced the hall until Leena opened the door, and, needing no further encouragement, she brushed past her toward the bed. Myka was wearing one of Helena's dressing gowns and examining the shirt and trousers she had worn the night before. The deep plum of the gown suited her but not its fit, the bottom hem reaching only to her shins and the sleeves ending well before her wrists. Myka seemed not to notice, biting her lip as she fingered the places where buttons had been popped or torn off. "I can't give these back to Claudia like this."

Ignoring Leena's derisive snort, Helena took the clothes from Myka. "I'll fix them." At Myka's doubtful look, she said, "I'm good with a needle and thread. Occupational necessity." She knew Myka didn't miss the import of the last, but her appreciative smile hadn't dimmed, and though Helena wasn't so foolish as to think their greater intimacy had put an end to all the tension between them – she wasn't convinced that her history didn't bother Myka on some level –she had hopes that their differences didn't loom as large as she feared.

As Myka placed the clothes on the bed, Helena knelt in front of one of the trunks she had brought from New York and opened the lid. Admiring anew the dresses she had bought, she paid no attention to the advice Leena was giving Myka about remedies for her headache and sore muscles until, without raising her voice, the crispness of her enunciation serving to make her words sound loud in the room, Leena said, "Promise me that you won't exert yourself for the next several days. You need time and rest to heal." Helena knew the caution was directed at her just as she knew, were she to turn around, that she would see Leena glowering at her. But she was beyond shame. She didn't feel remorse for anything that had happened with Myka in the waning hours of the night; the entire day had been one of heat and fire and explosiveness, and it seemed only right for the day to have ended that way. Leena should be so lucky to be visited by such a storm. Myka murmured an abashed assent, and Helena sensed another hard stare boring into her back before Leena left the room.

Helena unfolded one of the dresses and held it up in front of her. Not one of the more stylish or expensive dresses she had bought but not a workaday dress either. Myka would be reluctant to accept it; had it been a dress to wear while sweeping out the house, Myka would still have been reluctant. But she couldn't leave Helena's house in Helena's dressing gown. Helena stood and turned to face Myka, holding the dress against her own shoulders. "I bought you some things while I was in New York," she said casually, but she couldn't meet Myka's eyes. "It should fit you much better than my dressing gown."

"Helena." It was part plea, part exaggerated sigh. "It's lovely."

Helena debated whether this was the right time to hint that this dress was the least of it, but Myka was already taking the dress from her and tossing it on the bed behind them. "You look like a child about to confess that she ate all the candy. What else have you done?" Indulgence tempered the exasperation this time.

"Nothing," Helena protested. She ran her fingers under the lapel of the dressing gown, pulling the fabric away from Myka's skin, just enough so that she could feel Myka's warmth against her hand. "Nothing you won't forgive me for," she added softly, watching how Myka's eyes seemed to cloud over and then clear, her gaze suddenly hot and intent. Helena was surprised by the immediacy of her own response, the urge to untie the belt of the dressing gown, to step into her, parting those long legs, and to drive her back onto the bed. But the sickle-shaped outline of a bruise, visible where she had pushed the gown's lapel aside drew her attention, and before she had quite reconciled thought with action, she was closing the loosened vee of the gown at the same time as she was imagining removing its belt. Giving the lapel a gentle pat, Helena started to step away until Myka caught her hand and held it against her chest. The heat of Myka's look hadn't lessened, but the wrinkling of her forehead signaled discontent and Helena freed her hand to smooth the lines away. "Leena said no exertion."

"I was planning on letting you do all the work this time."

Myka's voice had the same timbre, low and rough, as on the morning when they had stood together, almost like this, in the _Journal_ 's office, and Helena felt the same dizziness as she had then as well. Only this time compounded by the heady realization that Myka wasn't backpedaling from what they had shared but rushing toward it. Helena knew she should continue her retreat to the part of her room farthest away from Myka and the bed, but she found herself swaying forward, wanting to wear the sound of Myka's voice like a second skin, to feel its unsteadiness vibrate within her. But the cautious tread of Leena's feet on the stairs, the homely, domestic groaning of wood under stress chased away the dizziness. Helena only had time to whisper next to Myka's ear, "I'm hoping you'll be the death of me," before, with an exaggerated clearing of her throat, Leena announced her presence.

"There's a breakfast of sorts in the kitchen, though the eggs may be beyond repair." Her words were accompanied by another hard look at Helena, and Helena couldn't remember a time when Leena had so thoroughly disapproved of her behavior. Her expression gentling as she glanced at Myka, Leena said, "I put together some medicines for you to take home. You can drink them as teas, and they should help with any lingering effects."

Myka was smiling, but she had begun plucking at the dressing gown as though she were ready to change out of it. With her brows lowering, Leena stared at Helena until Helena began, reluctantly, to step backward toward the door. "I'll leave you to get dressed, then."

Despite Leena's silence on their return to the kitchen, the rigid stiffness of her back was a rebuke, and Helena sighed loudly and with aggravation as she helped Leena set the table. "You're clearly still displeased with me, so you might as well tell me the rest." Passing the stove, Helena saw the browned whites and thickened yolks in the skillet and tentatively poked at them with a finger. The coffee smelled bitter as well. Plenty of cream might help the one, but, Leena was right, there was no help for the other.

"Besides being appalled that you were so. . . careless with her," Leena said, placing butter and preserves on the table, "I'm not confident that you can maintain your concentration."

"And my concentration is needed now because?"

"Because something doesn't feel right," Leena said, aimlessly dipping a spoon in and out of the preserves. Helena thought she might prefer the harshly admonishing Leena to this pensive one. "Things are out of kilter."

"I thought that's why we came here," Helena said dryly, taking biscuits and bread and scones (wondrous ones that Leena had learned to make) from the breadbox.

Leena graced her with a small smile. "More out of kilter than usual."

Helena split open a biscuit and slathered its sides with butter. "Don't trouble yourself about my ability to remain focused," she said, biting into the biscuit. She wanted to devour it whole, wanted to eat everything on the platter that she had just set between the butter and preserves. She also felt the desire, hardly less intense, to feed a biscuit or scone to Myka, to kiss away the crumbs. . . . Possibly there was some justice in Leena's comment about her concentration. The task at hand was not feeding Myka, although it might be a task for a future time. Helena smiled down at the uneaten half of her biscuit, but aware of how Leena had been scrutinizing her, she bit down on the inside of her lip to shrink the smile. The grass fire, Rudy Hellinger, those were the things she needed to be thinking about. "I believe the grass fire was set, and had it not rained when it did and had Myka not left Claudia's workshop when she did, you wouldn't be chastising me about being careless with her."

"It's been so dry, how can you be sure?" Leena was at the stove, using the towel to remove the coffeepot and pour the coffee into two cups. A third cup was already set aside on the counter for Helena's tea. No matter how disappointed or angry Leena might be, Helena could always trust that Leena would continue to look out for her. It was a small gesture of appreciation but Helena took another biscuit from the platter, opening and preparing it for Leena, who said only, "Easy on the preserves." But the warmth had returned to her voice.

"Because of where the fire started and its general direction," Myka said, entering the kitchen. She was too pale, and the scratches and small cuts that marred her skin were too angry-looking, but Helena thought she was beautiful in the amber-colored dress, which clung to her like the honey it resembled. Feeling Helena's gaze, Myka let her own eyes sweep up and to the side, giving her a look in return that managed to be both seductive and chiding, an acknowledgement of desire and a reminder that it needed to be deferred. What a taskmistress she could be, Helena thought with amusement, and then felt her pulse speed up as she began to imagine the implications. It was going to be very hard to keep her thoughts from drifting when all the elements from the previous night were here together, Myka, the kitchen, the kitchen table.

" . . . only the house and the outbuildings were in its path," Myka was saying.

"And one of the Donovan hands mysteriously disappeared when the fire started," Helena interjected, hoping Leena would mark the contribution and not how Helena's eyes had roved over Myka's figure when she entered the kitchen. "The one who was hired only weeks before Joshua Donovan was murdered." Just a little bit more to emphasize that she had been paying attention.

"Any proof that the hand worked for MacPherson?" Leena asked, holding out a cup of coffee to Myka, who almost absently took it from her. Ignoring the remaining cup on the counter, Leena sat down at the table and nibbled at her biscuit. "Helena, the kettle's hot if you want to make your tea."

Apparently looking out for her only went so far or all was not was forgiven, Helena grumbled to herself, as she took Leena's place at the stove and lifted the kettle. Myka tentatively sipped at her coffee and then very quickly looked for a place to put down the cup, not quite suppressing a grimace at the taste. "There wasn't really a good time last night to ask Claudia or Mr. Nielsen about him," she said.

Leena shifted in her chair to take in the both of them. "That brings to mind the question I've been wanting to ask. Myka, why did you come back to town? Why aren't you still at the ranch?"

Myka caught Helena's eye as she was beginning to tip the kettle. It was clear from her face that she didn't want to answer Leena's question, the green eyes wide and apprehensive. Giving her a fond, reassuring glance in return, Helena put the kettle back on the stove. "Because she and Sheriff Lattimer followed me to the MacPherson ranch to stop me from killing him."

Leena stopped mid-chew and very carefully swallowed. "Because you're standing here blithely telling me this, I have to assume that you were unsuccessful."

"He wasn't home," Myka said nervously. She turned her head from Leena to Helena and back again. "Speaking of not being home, I haven't been home since yesterday morning. Even if one of Claudia's men was able to let my father know what happened, he'll be worried."

Leena's hard stare had returned and feeling it drill into her once more, Helena tried to ignore it by picking up the kettle again and pouring hot water into her cup. She sent another affectionate glance in Myka's direction. "At least sit down for a minute and eat something. I'll dress and go to the livery and get the carriage for you."

"There's no need, Helena." Myka was shaking her head. "If I could ride all night on horseback, I can manage walking to the _Journal_. Besides, it's better if my father doesn't see me getting down from your carriage." Her eyes roamed the kitchen, searching for something. "I just need the coat I was wearing."

"And your medicines," Leena reminded her. She gave Helena a look that said they had much to discuss after Myka left. Bumping her with her hip to underscore her displeasure as she passed Helena on her way to the end of the counter, Leena reached for a small, string-tied bundle.

"The coat," Helena repeated. One of the first things she had done when she had tiptoed down to the kitchen earlier in the morning was to take the coat from the table and throw it outside, on top of the other trash that she or Leena would burn. There was no rehabilitating it. "I thought it was beyond repair, so I disposed of it." The words were innocent enough, but Helena's glance was not, and the color rose in Myka's cheeks.

"I suppose it was the worse for wear," Myka murmured, half in embarrassment and half in admiration at what they had put the coat through. "Thank you," she said, her cheeks continuing to pink and her voice cracking as Leena put the bundle, smelling fragrantly of prairie flowers, in her hands.

Myka pulled the door open, and Helena felt a hard, hot squeezing in her chest. She didn't want to see Myka slip past the frame, she didn't want to see her leave, ever. It was childish and foolish, but even knowing that, she almost cried out in protest. She suspected that if Claudia's man had found Myka's father, it was unlikely he would have been able to rouse Warren Bering from his stupor long enough to tell him about the fire. Myka would know that, too. She was going home not because she thought her father was pacing the floor with worry, more than likely he was sleeping off his excesses at the Spur, but because it needed to be done. Observances had to be. . . . observed. It was why Helena had asked for someone to ride from the ranch to find Myka's father, and it was why Myka was leaving now.

She followed Myka through the door, shivering as the cold wind bit through her robe and nightgown. A respectable woman wouldn't be seen outside her home in her nightgown, but Helena was appreciative, not for the first time, that she wasn't expected to be respectable. She cupped the side of Myka's face, and Myka eagerly drew closer, angling her head down, ready to be kissed, but Helena wasn't at all certain that she could kiss with her with platonic restraint and, instead, rested her forehead against Myka's. "Is it all right if I come to the _Journal_ later to check on you?"

Myka nodded, the movement a sweet pressure against Helena's forehead, before she stepped back. "Better that you come inquiring after my health than driving me to the door. My father couldn't complain about that. How could you not visit after his daughter nearly lost her life in an explosion?" Her smile was a rare mischievous one that, in combination with the scratches on her face, lent her a raffish air, which Helena realized she found all too attractive. The raffishness – and Helena's response to it – was further heightened when Myka leaned in to whisper, "Only to lose her innocence in the boss's kitchen."

"I'll be sure to mention that to your father," Helena said striving for flippancy, but the tremor in her voice betrayed her, and Myka's smile grew wider. Swinging Leena's bundle of medicine by its string, she crossed the yard, stopping frequently to look back at Helena. Helena waited until she could no longer see Myka before she turned to go back into the kitchen. Her own somewhat dazed smile disappeared at being confronted by Leena's frosty stare.

Deciding to combat Leena's disapproval with an aggressive self-defense, Helena said, "There was no blood shed at the MacPherson ranch. No one was hurt, and I believe that the housekeeper I frightened was suitably recompensed. Other than doing some minor damage to that monument to his grandiosity, I caused no great harm." When Leena showed no signs of being swayed to her point of view, Helena said impatiently, "I will, of course, pay to have MacPherson's door fixed and his horses returned to him."

"Helena, you act as if what you did was nothing more than a display of temper," Leena objected. "Myka said you went over there to kill him, and you haven't denied it." She looked away from Helena, her expression a mix of worry and helplessness. "We don't have the resources here, Irene and I, to save you from your own rashness."

Helena felt her bravado flag in the face of Leena's concern. Pulling out a chair from the table, she slumped down on it. "Myka said something similar. She said the town would've tried to hang me if I had killed him." She pressed her fingers against her temples. "But you didn't see the workshop go up, Leena. I thought I had lost her, all because MacPherson wants a town even more godforsaken than this one to have a railroad." A sudden thought seized her, and she grabbed Leena's hands, gripping them tightly. "When you said you sensed something wrong, it didn't concern Myka, did it? He doesn't do something else that hurts her, does he?" She laughed uncertainly. "Because I'll be rash enough to wait outside his home and shoot him dead before he can put his plan into motion." Her feint of a laugh was doing a poor job of convincing Leena that she was joking, and Helena recognized, despite all that had happened since she had left MacPherson's ranch, a part of her was still running toward the workshop trying to prevent something she knew she was too late to stop. She wondered whether she would always be running up that rise to the workshop just as she was always in that horrid little room watching Charles take her daughter away. If this happened too many more times, losing someone she loved, there wouldn't be enough of her left to move forward.

"I can't see into the future, Helena. You know it doesn't work like that." As Helena's hands clutched hers in increasing anxiety, Leena grimaced. "Her pattern, it's not the one I see disrupted. Not directly, anyway."

It was small comfort she offered, but Helena took it. She didn't know whether Leena actually saw patterns or whether it was a metaphor she had adopted to describe an experience even more nebulous, but Leena wouldn't have shirked from telling her if what she sensed involved Myka. Which suggested that the disrupted pattern was her own. She stopped clutching Leena's hands; she was always a concern of some kind to Leena, regardless of what her pattern looked like. Cavalier when she should be serious, impulsive when caution was required. Unless Leena was to tell her that her pattern had sheared off, her next step or breath to be her last, she wasn't going to fret about what Leena had sensed. All she cared to know was that Myka was safe.

She didn't exactly count the minutes until it was the proper time to visit the Berings at home – later in the afternoon but not indecently close to suppertime – but she looked at every clock and watch in the house, hoping one of them would have advanced to the hour she wanted. She took another bath and selected one of the dresses she had bought for herself in New York. The color of claret, it made the contrast between the darkness of her hair and the whiteness of her skin all the more dramatic. Taking from another trunk an armful of the books she had purchased for Myka, which still left dozens more, Helena stopped in the kitchen to pick up the basket of food Leena had prepared, sandwiches and a cobbler that Leena had baked earlier in the afternoon. The bottom of the pan was still warm to the touch.

As she packed some of the books in the basket, she was aware that Leena was watching her with amusement. Better that than the scowls and glares of the morning, although Helena failed to see what was so humorous. "I would do the same, you know," she said irritably, "if Pastor Wallace's wife had been injured or taken ill."

"No you wouldn't," Leena said. "You'd be sending me to the Wallaces, not going yourself. And you realize that you're dressed as if you were going to visit the president."

"I wouldn't be dressed this nicely to entertain a gouty old man." Helena peered into the basket to see if she could fit in another book.

"Actually you wouldn't be dressed at all," Leena said, laughter rippling through her words.

Helena's laugh was a rueful one. She looked down at her dress and then fiddled with the pair of onyx earrings she had put on. "Myka says it doesn't matter to her what I was before." Almost shyly she added, "I told her about Christina, too."

"You're not such a horrible person, Helena," Leena teased gently. "And Myka understands better than most, I think, that people aren't either good or bad, but a muddle of strengths and weaknesses." As Helena placed the books that wouldn't fit into the basket in the crook of her arm, Leena hefted the basket, emitting a groan that wasn't entirely playful. Leveling a sardonic look at her, Helena took the basket from Leena. "Trust that in her, her willingness to understand." Leena's face had sobered. "Don't be afraid to lean on her, to ask her for her help when you need it."

Helena frowned. She had asked for Myka's help. Well, perhaps not asked, but certainly accepted it. "She's helping me now with MacPherson." Her jaw tensed and alarm flared in her eyes. "Is there something else you're sensing, something involving her that you should be telling me?"

"No," Leena emphasized. "I promise, nothing is going to happen to Myka." Opening the door for Helena and touching her on the elbow to shepherd her through, Leena said, "I just wanted you to recognize that it's not a weakness to turn to her or to want to rely on her for support. You've not been used to that."

She was smiling but she had said it as a mother might to a child who was having a difficult time understanding a simple truth everyone else had grasped. Helena didn't know whether to be annoyed at the needless encouragement or outraged at the implication that she was a none-too-bright child, but she chose not to snap back, reminding herself that she would be seeing Myka in a few minutes and that was worth having to endure any homily.

Except that when she knocked on the door to the Berings' rooms (having decided that using the _Journal_ 's entrance was too formal and employer-like) it was Warren Bering, gaunt and unkempt and bleary-eyed, who greeted her. And none too happily. "How is Myka doing?" Helena asked, more anxiously than she intended, but he had made no gesture to invite her in or to take the basket from her.

"She's resting." If anything, he took up more of the doorway, planting his feet wider and placing his hands on his hips.

"I brought you a few things." With one hand, the other arm occupied with books, Helena awkwardly lifted the basket up and toward him. "I'm sure she won't feel up to cooking, so there are sandwiches Leena made and a cobbler. Oh, and a few books, not to eat obviously. . . . ." Helena let her words trail off, aware that she was beginning to babble.

He took the basket from her then, looking at it and her suspiciously. "Mrs. Grabel's looking after us," he said in clear dismissal of Helena and her offerings.

"Of course," she said, not knowing what else to say. "I'm sure that Myka will be appreciative of her care," she added after a pause, wondering dismally from what cobwebbed corner of her mind she had found something so inane. She was used to his resentment; he smelled as strongly of it as he did of the Spur's rotgut. But there was something more implacable in his stance now, as if she had evolved from an irritant into a threat, and it occurred to her that he might decide to uproot and leave the _Journal_ , taking Myka with him. She couldn't allow that to happen.

Withdrawing slightly from their door, she said placatingly, "If Myka's resting, I won't disturb her, but I hope that when she's feeling better, you'll both come to dinner at my home. We have much to talk about, Mr. Bering." She smiled at him as winningly as she knew how. "I was thinking we should go to Bismarck. I understand that more information is forthcoming about the spur line to Halliday, and I want to make sure that we keep our readers informed about something so vital to their interests." Granted it would be information that she and Myka would somehow have to retrieve from the office of Wesley Kimball, but all the _Journal_ 's readers needed to know was the content of what they found, not how they found it.

"I don't see why we can't discuss it here and why Myka would need to be a part of it," he said unbendingly.

She made the mistake of looking up into that scowling face. His eyes, so different from Myka's, small and dark and bloodshot, were narrowing with hostility, and his nose seemed to be constricting, as though she were something foul that had been left on his doorstep. Her smile began to slip, but she said almost entreatingly, "Because our relationship has deteriorated since your daughter and I became friends, and I would like to do what I can to repair it."

"The only way you can repair it is by leaving my daughter alone."

She tried to think of a diplomatic way to tell him that she wouldn't be leaving Myka alone, now or in the future, unless Myka asked her to. But he already knew that, if only because, by coming to her ranch in spite of his disapproval, Myka had declared that she wouldn't be leaving Helena alone. "I know you fear that our association will only harm Myka's reputation, but I assure you, Mr. Bering, that I can provide her with advantages that many young women never have." Helena faltered. She didn't sound so much like a suitor, which would have been bad enough, as she did some old roué who was offering to make Myka his mistress.

And while Myka's father might have no idea of what their association, as she had limply called it, had become, he didn't fail to hone in on the seamier connotations of "advantages." "I suppose you mean things like the fancy dress she came home in and the fancy dress you have on, the kind of things that men who consort with your girls at the Spur are all too willing to provide. Are those the 'advantages' you're talking about?" His face was unhealthily mottled with crimson patches, and Helena had felt the spittle from the force with which he flung the accusation at her.

"Of course not," she said hotly. "All I meant was that Sweetwater shouldn't be the limit of her horizons. I have the means to help her stretch her wings."

"She was doing all right until you took an interest in her. She had a good man who was courting her, or trying to, until the two of you went off gallivanting across the prairie," he complained.

"It wasn't gallivanting," Helena said, feeling all of her good intentions scattering like leaves before a wind. "It was, it is an effort to prevent this town from dying, which is what will happen if it loses the railroad. I should think that, as editor of its paper, you would have an interest in its future. However, it's your daughter, whom you would rather see married to that man-child of a sheriff than to see her talents fully employed, who's trying to save this town from itself."

"Perhaps you should make her editor," he said quietly. The crimson patches were gone, and his face had become paler than her own.

Helena closed her eyes. The only thing she had succeeded in doing by trying to visit Myka was to shame her father. The books she still carried were heavy slung against her arm, and she shifted them so she could hold them with her other arm. "I would like you and Myka to come to dinner at my home after she's had time to recover. I would like to talk about the spur to Halliday and about going to Bismarck to obtain more information. I would like you to accept this as a request, as a peace offering if you'll take it as such, because I would like us to work together."

"I can't do that," he said, his voice hard.

"Then take it as an order," she said flatly. "Thursday evening, dinner at my home. Bring Myka with you."

She had spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening in her library, reading or pretending to read. She hoped that Myka hadn't heard her quarrelling with her father, but their voices had been raised, and Myka would have needed to have been sleeping the sleep of the just – or the truly exhausted – not to have been woken by them. Not until after midnight did Helena turn down the lamps and take her book to bed, Leena having gone to her room hours earlier. Since she could lay no claim to being just or as exhausted as Myka undoubtedly was, Helena had no expectations of sleep. In fact, she assumed she would be visited by her usual series of nightmares, intensified by the unpleasantness with Warren Bering earlier in the day. But she must have slept at least a little, because the sound of something hitting her window jerked her awake with a gasp. The lamp on her nightstand was guttering, the flame beginning to smoke, and as she leaned over to blow it out, she heard the sound again.

She slid from the bed and peered out the window as a spray of pebbles clattered against the glass. Looking down, she spied Myka jiggling something in her hand and then arc her arm across her body. In spite of herself, she stepped back when the pebbles hit the glass, only to lean forward for fear Myka was already leaving in disappointment and wave. She wasn't sure Myka could see it or the grin that had spread across her face. Shrugging into her robe as she ran down the stairs, she almost lost her balance; frustrated that she had to grab at the railing to prevent herself from falling, because that used up precious seconds that could have been better spent flying to the kitchen, she snarled at the staircase before gathering up the trailing edge of her robe and hurrying to the back door. Myka was standing outside it, hugging herself against the cold. Helena pulled her inside and began to ask her what she was doing here at this time of night, but Helena already knew, knew not just from the reckless grin that matched her own, but from the heat suddenly radiating through her, turning her robe and nightgown, which moments before had seemed flimsy shields against the cold of her room, into the heaviest of armor, their weight unbearable since all she wanted was her skin against Myka's, and then Myka's mouth was on hers, swallowing the question Helena hadn't needed to ask at all.

###

Helena recalled another morning like this at the Spur, when she had been trying to reconcile accounts through a haze of exhaustion, having spent her nights thrashing on her bed in the wake of uneasy dreams. This time her nights had been equally as sleepless and as full of thrashing limbs, but the cause wasn't nightmares or dreams of a woman she couldn't have, and she hadn't been alone. Smiling to herself, she sipped at the coffee Freddie had made; it was comfortingly awful. She would put in another half-hour with the ledgers, check in with the girls, and then go home. Tonight was the night the Berings were coming to dinner, and while she felt an anxious twinge every time she imagined Warren Bering sourly staring at her over his baked chicken, she told herself that she would have the opportunity to feast her eyes on Myka. Over the past few nights there hadn't been much time for simply looking at her, let alone talking or sleeping. Myka would creep up the stairs to Helena's bedroom around midnight – they had dispensed with the pebble-throwing after the first night, Myka now letting herself in through the kitchen – and she would leave Helena's bed before dawn. But tonight, tonight they could talk and Helena could look, and she would admire Myka in whatever she wore, even if it was the dowdiest of her dresses, and then later, much later, there would be no talking, nothing that could be mistaken for polite conversation, anyway, and Myka would be out of her dress, looking equally as lovely.

Bending over the ledger, she was interrupted by the sound of a bell. It sounded again, and though she hoped with better reason this time that it was Myka, she knew it wasn't. He was outfitted in the deepest blue, frock coat, trousers, vest, but she had smelled the pomade before she saw him. She had sent out workmen earlier in the week to repair his door and paid the stableboy at the livery to take back the horses she and Myka had borrowed. But he would want more than that.

He didn't take a chair. He closed the door and leaned against it. "Why do you insist upon making an enemy of me?" There was no insincere smile, no mocking note in his voice.

She answered him as gravely. "Because you're an enemy of this town and of people I care for." She closed the ledger. "You know and I know that you had Joshua Donovan murdered and that you had the grass fire set."

" _I_ know nothing of the kind." A well-polished watch peeped from a vest pocket, and he hooked a thumb over the chain. "What I know is that there is a very foolish woman who is dangerously close to airing accusations that can only hurt her. Joshua Donovan was killed by rustlers, and as for the grass fire, this prairie has been ready to burn for months. No one would believe a ridiculous story about someone trying to set it ablaze."

"Rudy Hellinger disappeared the day of the fire. He was hired by Joshua Donovan only a few weeks before his death. I bet I wouldn't have to dig very hard to find out he also worked for you."

"Let me spare you the digging." He was smiling now, and Helena realized that he had been waiting for her to make the connection, which did not bode well for her hopes of finding Rudy Hellinger, wherever he might have hidden himself away, and convincing him to tell the truth. "Rudy worked as a hand on my ranch for a couple of months before I had to fire him for theft. When I heard he was asking for a job on the Donovan ranch, I warned Joshua about his character, but Joshua was always a bit too idealistic for his own good."

"I suppose there are witnesses who heard you warning Joshua about him," Helena said sarcastically.

"No, our conversation was a private one," he admitted, still smiling. "But Rudy had worked for Walter Sykes before he came to me. Apparently he didn't steal anything from Sykes, but he was a troublemaker, getting into fights and such, and Sykes had to let him go."

"How. . . charitable of you then to hire him," Helena said.

"Foolish, not charitable. But I learn from my mistakes." He crossed one ankle over the other, seemingly prepared to lean against her door all day. "Were you to find Rudy, which I doubt that you will, you couldn't get anyone to believe anything he said. He's a liar and a thief, and it's all too possible that he was trying to rustle cattle off the Donovan ranch. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he was the one who murdered Joshua, and while I find it hard to believe that he would set a fire for no reason, he's the careless kind who would flip a cigarette into the grass."

Helena looked down at her ledger; she couldn't bear to look at his gloating face. He was right; Rudy Hellinger would be of no use to them. No doubt he had paid Hellinger very, very well to serve as the scapegoat. She had to admire MacPherson's cleverness, he had left them only one other route of attack, the guaranty, and how much time did they have before Charlie Graves would encounter him and work up the courage to mention the pretty young woman who had come to talk to him about the spur to Halliday? "Other than providing me with an unwelcome distraction from running my business, is there another reason why you're here?"

"Just to let you know that I'm seeking charges against you. The sheriff is reluctant to arrest you, why I don't know, since he seems to have no great love for you. But you threatened my life, and I take that quite seriously."

She smiled thinly. "I was distraught. Everyone knows what almost happened on the Donovan ranch, and though I may not be well liked by this town, its citizens are capable of some shred of sympathy for me. However, if you want to have me arrested for trespassing or malicious destruction of property, go right ahead. The town will laugh behind your back, but I'll happily sit in jail overnight and pay the fine."

Nettled, he tugged at his watch chain. "I sometimes think the only thing that will satisfy you will be my departure from this earth."

"I don't think you have to go that far on my account, but if you're so inclined, I certainly wouldn't want to delay you."

"Tread carefully, Mrs. Wells." It wasn't said as a threat, not exactly, but Helena defensively pulled her shoulders in after the door closed behind him. If she thought Myka's father could be persuaded to move quickly, she would urge that they leave for Bismarck tomorrow. She would need to be at her best this evening; she couldn't let herself lose her temper with him, no matter how he might try to provoke her, and she knew with gloomy certainty that he would try to provoke her. He wasn't a man, she suspected, who liked to answer to a woman, and he especially didn't like to answer to a woman he didn't respect. If he ever caught on to just how friendly she and Myka had become. . . she groaned and put her head in her hands.

She wanted to get this over with, not just the dinner or the trip to Bismarck, but this mission to rid Sweetwater of MacPherson. There had always seemed something vaguely apocalyptic about their traveling out here to the middle of nowhere, as if the man she and Leena were seeking, and back then they hadn't even known his name, was a demon they had to destroy in a blaze of righteous glory. But she wasn't righteous or capable of anything remotely glorious. She was a 32-year-old woman who had gotten far more things wrong in her life than she had gotten right, and all she wanted to do now was to take this newspaperman's daughter, whom she had fallen in love with and who had fallen in love with her, however improbably, and shake the dust of this town from their heels. It seemed a simple enough thing, leaving with Myka, but she wouldn't give any better odds on its success than sending MacPherson back to whatever hell he had come from.

 


	16. Chapter 16

They were going to be late. The dinner was at seven, and though it was only a short walk to Helena's house, it was already ten to seven, and her father had yet to change. He had said he needed to adjust a part in the press that was causing the paper to skew, but Myka hadn't noticed that the print was off-center. He was delaying; he didn't want to go, and being late was how he was choosing to make his objection known. She knew better, however, than to bring that fact to his attention or try to hurry him along, since the worst part of it wouldn't be his yelling at her, which she had long since learned not to hear, but his redoubled efforts to make them even tardier. Yet seeing him peer into the press, stand back, and peer into it again was only angering her, so she took refuge in her alcove. She sat on the edge of her bed, trying not to wrinkle her dress. It was the sea-green one she had worn to the picnic, and she had thought it was the prettiest dress she had ever owned until Helena had given her the one she wore home from Helena's house. After the fire, after Helena had looked at her in a way that Helena hadn't looked at her before, in a way that no one had looked at her before, except possibly Sam, and she hadn't recognized then what that way was because she wasn't wanting what Sam wanted, not as much, anyway, but she had wanted what Helena wanted and just as badly. She smoothed the material over her knees; it was too light for the cool autumn nights they had been having, and she would be cold in it in Helena's house. That was another change the grass fire had brought about; summer had ended that day, and in the chill breezes that had swept through Sweetwater since then Myka had felt the promise, if it could be called such, of winter. The dress Helena had bought for her was of a sturdier material, but she couldn't wear it. When she had come home that morning, sore and bruised and aching but reveling in it all the same because Helena, in some manner, was a part of every scrape and strain, whether she had been a cause of any of them or not, her father had been drinking coffee in their tiny parlor. All he had grunted initially was "I see you're in one piece," although she thought she could hear in it a note of relief, and then, after another longer look, he said, "You've been with her, haven't you? That's not one of your dresses." He hadn't told her to take it off, but she had, exchanging it for something older and faded, which, outside the sea-green dress, was all she had in exchange. He hadn't told her she couldn't wear the dress tonight either, but it was one less irritant in an evening that, for him, held nothing but irritants.

They were knocking at Helena's door by seven-thirty. Her father had trimmed his whiskers and changed into the nicest clothes he owned, a black frock coat and trousers slightly less rusty than the others and which he had worn to funerals and to Tracy's wedding, the one ostensibly happy event that the Berings had enjoyed in recent years, even though he hadn't smiled at all during the ceremony. A girl, not Leena, opened the door and welcomed them into the foyer and then, after a moment's indecision, showed them into the parlor. "I'll let Mrs. Wells know you're here."

Myka looked curiously at the girl as she spun awkwardly away from them, almost running from the room before stopping at the threshold to kneel in what could only be a curtsey. She was no more than sixteen or seventeen, and Myka had never seen her in Helena's home before. They heard her rushing up the stairs and her voice, breathless and excited, floated down, "Mrs. Wells, they're—" before the door to Helena's bedroom closed. It was all too easy to imagine Helena in front of her mirror, fussing at the fit of her dress or reconsidering her choice of earrings. Myka closed her eyes and imagined standing behind Helena and lifting up the coil of hair to kiss her neck, her breath stirring the downy hairs that lay flat against her nape. As a floorboard creaked above them, she saw Helena crossing the room to her wardrobe or her jewelry cabinet, perhaps even to the trunks from New York that remained against the wall. Without Helena telling her, she knew that much of the trunks' contents was for her; she had glimpsed the spines of books in one and, in the others, dresses and other garments. Although it was possible that Helena had bought them for herself, she would sometimes glance at Myka and then at the trunks with such hopefulness, as if it were Christmas and she was Santa Claus bringing gifts, that Myka would look away, rather than tell her what they both knew was the truth, that Myka's father wouldn't tolerate her bringing any of them home with her. He had made Myka promise that, once she read them, she would return the books Helena had brought with her on her visit, a visit that Myka could only be thankful that she had slept through based on the diatribes her father had since launched against Helena as he drank coffee or whiskey, or when he worked, which was less often than when he sat at the table drinking something strong-smelling from a cup.

They had to wait before Helena joined them in the parlor, long enough for them to know she had marked that they were late but not so long that her father could justify treating her delay as an insult. Myka wanted to rub her forehead where the muscles were already knotting in tension, but it was going to be her role to be the calm, dispassionate one, the peacemaker if necessary. She thought her nerves might settle once she saw Helena, but as Helena swept into the parlor, her head held regally high and her smile, managing to be both amused and gracious, lighting on each of them equally, Myka felt her throat constrict. She had forgotten how Helena could make an entrance; she felt almost as she had the afternoon they met, uncertain and not a little rattled, set back on her heels by someone whose presence conjured a much larger person. The theater of her entrance was heightened by the color of her dress, a red so deep and rich that it seemed to absorb the light in the room. The bodice was fashioned like a jacket, with close-fitted sleeves and a collar so high and stiff that Helena's head seemed to rest on it, a pearl nested in velvet. Myka knew that she had woken next to a Helena whose hair had been a dark tangle on the pillow, who hadn't seemed jewel-like but infinitely softer and more fragile. Yet it was hard to recall that Helena when this one was near her, and she found herself responding too stiffly to Helena's inquiries about her recovery. This was a necessary bit of playacting, and she needed to be convincing in her role, but her connection was to the oftentimes impetuous Helena, whose emotions ran close to the surface and not to this elegantly distant woman who, Myka now understood, served as her shield. A moment's hesitancy seemed to pass across Helena's face, as if she sensed Myka's confusion, before she pressed Myka's hand, as she might an acquaintance who had undergone a similar misfortune, and complimented her on how well she looked.

As Helena led them into the dining room, Myka's father stopped to take in the massive table set with crystal and fine china and silver, the latter so assiduously polished that it shone. He scrutinized the place settings with their multiple forks and spoons. "I had no idea who you were, Mrs. Wells, when Myka and I arrived in Sweetwater. So I mentioned in a letter to a friend that the publisher was a lady hailing from England with the last name of Wells, and he wrote back saying maybe you were one of the Wells family who owned all the textile mills over there. My friend made a joke, maybe not the politest, but a woman of your broad. . . interests might find some humor in it. He said the Wells mills put a bit of the Union Jack in every union suit in America." Picking up a knife, Myka's father craned his face this way and that trying to see his reflection in it. "Seeing this fancy table, I'm inclined to believe him. You're going to have to educate me on which utensil to use when."

Myka looked down at the floor. This was how he was going to be. But there had also been no reason for Helena to have a table set as if she were preparing to entertain a foreign dignitary. "I would advise you to use whatever utensil is closest, Mr. Bering," Helena said, unruffled. Myka's father first pulled out a chair for Helena, then one for Myka, before taking his own. "As for my relationship with the Wells family, I suppose you could say I'm the black sheep."

"All the best families have them," he said, with mock agreeableness. "Now the Berings, we're just plain folk." He lifted his wine glass and studied the wine in it before placing the glass back on the table. "We can't afford black sheep. We have only no-goods."

Helena's smile thinned, but her tone maintained its cool pleasantness. "The terminology may differ between families, but I assure you the sentiments are the same."

As the teenaged girl came into the room, bearing a whole chicken on a platter, Helena murmured, "Place it in front of Mr. Bering, please, Mary." She gestured toward him. "If you would do the honors."

He watched the girl hurry from the room after depositing the platter with an accidental thump on the table. Myka dreaded what might come next from her father's mouth, perhaps a comment about Helena training her girls at the Spur to be housemaids as well, but Helena said swiftly, "I don't know if you recognize Mary Jennings, but Leena has been at their home frequently these past few weeks since Mary's sister is almost due. In fact that's where Leena is tonight, and Mary very graciously has taken her place."

"Why, I wasn't thinking anything at all." Myka's father grinned as he sliced into the chicken with the carving knife. "Except maybe that you were providing, uh, advantages to that girl that she wouldn't have otherwise." He placed an expertly carved breast and wing on Myka's plate. As he approached Helena to take her plate, he said, "I don't know why your family would disapprove of you, Mrs. Wells. You've done very well for yourself. It's perhaps not what every parent would wish for his child, especially his daughter, but it's impossible to say you haven't been successful." He sliced more meat from the chicken, neatly cleaving a joint. Mary burst in from the kitchen, carrying dishes of steaming vegetables and looking wide-eyed at the table until Helena pointed to where she should place them. "I have to admit my hopes for my daughter are more modest. But you're the expert when it comes to young women." He gave her back her plate, still smiling. "Like my Myka, of course. Maybe, as you said, she does lack advantages."

Myka's head shot up and her eyes lifted from the chicken, which she thought had been a refuge from looking at either her father or Helena. Helena had been spooning scalloped potatoes to her plate but let the spoon clatter back in the dish. "I don't believe I said she lacked advantages," Helena said. "I meant only that I could provide her with opportunities should she want them. But having seen the encouragement you've provided her, I can understand why you wouldn't think she might hope for more."

Her father registered the lash of Helena's last words, and Myka saw his hands clench around his knife and fork. Quickly she interjected, "I'm happy with how things are right now." She gave Helena a long, significant look. "Very happy, in fact." She turned to her father and put her hand on his. "I love helping you with the _Journal_ , you know that."

"I think Mrs. Wells wants you to be running a newspaper," he grumbled. He pushed green beans around his plate. "Is that what you would like to do, Myka? Run a paper? Or maybe she thinks you have a head for business and wants to put you in charge of the Spur. Is that one of the opportunities you're thinking of, Mrs. Wells? Showing my daughter how to run a brothel?"

Before Myka had a chance to say anything, Helena cut in sharply. "You would prefer to see her married to the sheriff, who, by the way, is quite a favorite among my girls, whether or not she loves him, whether or not she wants to be married to him."

"She seemed to have liked him well enough, and I know she wants children. Why just the other day, she said she was tired of being an aunt and looking forward to when she would be a mother." He stabbed a piece of chicken and sawed at it with his knife.

I'm here. I'm right here, Myka said silently. She remembered the conversation that her father was referring to, but it hadn't been the "other day," it had been months ago, and she had said she was tired of being an aunt from a distance, that she was looking forward to when she would see Tracy's children again. She had said nothing about wanting her own children.

It was Helena who was pushing green beans around her plate this time. She asked quietly, "Do you want children, Myka?"

"I haven't given it much thought lately," Myka said. The knot in her forehead was throbbing; and with every word the two exchanged, it grew tighter, as if her father and Helena each held an end of the string in their hands. She drank her wine and nudged her plate away from her.

Her father looked from her to Helena, and she almost thought she could hear him sniffing the air, scenting blood. He looked happier as he stopped attacking his chicken and began eating it. "Maybe you should encourage the sheriff to come visiting again, Myka. I know you and Mrs. Wells have been spending a lot of time together, but a woman like her, we can't expect Sweetwater to hold her forever." He reached for the scalloped potatoes. "These are very good, Mrs. Wells. You'll have to thank Leena for me."

"She'll be pleased to hear it," she said automatically, her eyes on Myka. Gathering herself, she said more cordially, "Be sure to leave some room for the apple tart Leena made, Mr. Bering. We'll have fresh cream to go with it."

"A woman with opportunities to share and advantages to provide must find Sweetwater constraining," Myka's father said almost affably. "And then we're pretty rustic here, unlike where you grew up."

"I have no immediate plans to leave Sweetwater, although I'm sure some would rather see me go than stay." Helena's gaze was unwavering. No longer oblivious to the tension in the room, Mary peeked around the doorway before entering, venturing into the dining room with caution and, at Helena's nod, picking up her plate.

"But you don't see your future here, I imagine," Mr. Bering persisted.

The pressure in Myka's head intensified, and she gestured to Mary to take her plate as well. If she tried to eat anything more, she would be sick; of that, she was certain. Her father's appetite, however, seemed to have returned full force as he stood up and carved himself more chicken. Helena distractedly smoothed the tablecloth. "Nor do you, I suspect," she said.

He shrugged. "I suppose there'll be another paper or two for me after the _Journal_. But when Myka marries, I'll probably settle wherever she is, paper or no. You, though, I don't see you in a small town like this one. A big city more likely, one with . . . advantages. Maybe you'll even go back to England." He grinned. "You must miss your own kind, stuck here with us yokels."

"By my own kind, do you mean other saloon keepers or brothel owners? Or are you lumping the English in with them?" Helena's sarcasm was unmistakable, but the bite of it had lessened, and she hadn't stopped running her hand over the tablecloth.

"Oh, I meant people with broader horizons and bigger aspirations than the rest of us," Myka's father said, continuing to needle her. "You probably won't even remember us little people once you've moved on."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Helena said, the corner of her mouth turning up in the faintest of smiles. "But you'll be too busy dandling Myka's children on your knee to give me any thought." She looked at Myka and then looked away.

"Maybe so," he agreed. Uncharacteristically he leaned toward Myka and took her hand in his. "Myka here, she's like her mother, got her feet on the ground, this one. Mrs. Bering was always pulling my head out of the clouds. She knew the difference between flights of fancy and solid earth. Myka's the same."

"Sweetwater's too small for you, I've told you that before, Helena." Myka spoke to the tablecloth, sufficiently afraid of what she might find in Helena's eyes that she couldn't look up. "You belong on a larger stage." With a more appreciative audience, she said to herself.

"I never realized that you and your father thought so much alike," Helena said, and Myka reddened.

Leena had told her that how long Helena remained in Sweetwater would depend on her, but it was hard to believe in that now. Myka was a weak tether when all Sweetwater had to offer was an animosity as unrelenting as its hellish summers and arctic winters. The privation, physical and emotional, of this dusty station stop, would be enough to drive away the sunniest and most tolerant of newcomers. And when, not if, Helena chose to leave, Myka wouldn't be following her. That was what her father was trying to lay bare, that Helena could leave, would leave, with no intention of taking Myka with her. His crude emphasis of "advantages" and "opportunities," of their being "plain folk" and "yokels," it had been designed to goad Helena into revealing that she found Myka wanting, too common or too poor or both to be considered an equal. Her father had thought that would be enough for Myka's own pride to rise to the fore and for her to question her friendship with a woman who so clearly believed she was superior to everyone else. If Helena’s conviction that she was smarter, certainly more worldly, than the average citizen of Sweetwater had been enough to seed disapproval, Myka would have never borrowed another book after the first one, never engaged her in conversation after that first afternoon. Arrogance was as much a part of Helena as her recklessness and her generosity, her impatience and her protectiveness. It uneasily rode above –sometimes alongside – the self-loathing that was a part of her too, and which troubled Myka far more.

Not that she wasn't irked at Helena's presumption that she lacked for opportunities, never mind that it was true. She didn't like the thought of being under Helena's tutelage, and she would remind her the next time they were alone together, preferably in Helena's large bed, that Helena had given her the distinct impression that, in certain areas, she needed very little guidance. If there was a next time, and, having finally lifted her gaze from the tablecloth to risk a swift, passing glance at Helena's face, she wasn't convinced there would be one. Mary had brought out the apple tart and additional plates, and Helena was methodically cutting the tart into slices. She appeared absorbed by her task, bent over the plates. She seemed much smaller than when she had come into the parlor, head held high. By contrast, Myka's father seemed to have expanded, so casually sitting in his chair that he might be lolling in it; she wouldn't have been surprised had he slung one of his legs over the chair's arm.

That was why when Helena spoke in the clipped tone of voice she did when she was conducting business, Myka accidentally knocked her fork into the moat of cream surrounding her slice of tart, splashing cream everywhere. "I plan to leave for Bismarck on Monday. I hope the two of you will accompany me, as I believe we'll have much to say about Halliday and the railroad in a future issue, and I would welcome your help in ensuring that we've contacted the right people. But if you would prefer to remain in Sweetwater, I'll plan to talk with you, Mr. Bering, when I return."

With a magnanimous wave of his fork, Myka's father said, "You can plan on the both of us accompanying you. Myka's a good note-taker, better than I am." He smiled in easy concession.

He thought had bested her, Myka realized, as she dabbed at the tablecloth with her napkin. Of all the jabs he had made during the evening, the only one that seemed to have landed with any force was his comment about Myka's wanting children. Myka hadn't thought Helena would have taken it so amiss, but as Helena lapsed once more into an abstracted silence, she recognized that Helena had been in retreat, from her father's gibes, from the dinner, since that moment. As Mary returned to take the remains of their dessert, Myka's father pushed back his chair. "It was a lovely dinner, Mrs. Wells, but I have an ailing printing press I need to nurse." Turning to Myka, he asked, "Are you ready?"

"If you don't mind, I'll stay a few minutes. I need to speak with Helena."

He didn't seem displeased, maybe because without Myka beside him he wouldn't have to pretend that he was serious about working on the press. Or because he could afford to be gracious, believing the threat Helena represented to his daughter had been diminished and diminished by his successful demonstration of the differences that separated them. In any event, his ultimate destination was the Spur, whether he went home with Myka and then turned around in the direction of the saloon or went to it first. "Don't stay too late" was his only caution.

As Helena rose to see him to the door, he motioned to her to sit down. "I can see myself out." He placed his hands on Myka's shoulders; she was unaccustomed to their weight. "Thank you again for dinner. Myka and I are both appreciative of the trouble you went to."

Myka knew what the gesture meant, what his choosing to speak for the both of them meant. They were a unit, she and her father. Helena might throw expensive dresses and leather-bound books and fancy dinners Myka's way, but the weight of them couldn't break that bond. Myka felt as if they were playing out a scene from a gothic melodrama, her father defending her virtue from the predations of a rich and darkly beautiful but amoral seducer. Surely Helena must be laughing inwardly at their performance, so amateurish and awkward, in part because Myka's father was so little practiced in displaying affection. But Helena had gone back to smoothing the tablecloth with her fingers. The door closed, and still she concentrated on the back and forth of her hand.

"Was what your father said true, do you want to be a mother someday?"

"That wasn't exactly what I said to him. To be honest, I've never really considered it." Myka frowned. This seemed so unimportant. People wanted many things in life and rarely got them. Perhaps someday she would want to be a mother, but maybe she would be too old, or she would be unmarried, or married and barren. It wasn't something she felt that had to be answered now, but Helena appeared to be fixated on it, so she answered as honestly as she could. "I have no desire to bear children at this point in my life. It could change, but then again, it might not." She wished she was sitting closer to Helena so she could put her arms around that slender frame and pull Helena into her, but if she moved to do that, she feared she would be giving more weight to the conversation than it deserved. "Whether or not I want to be a mother has nothing to do with my feelings for you. It wouldn't determine how happy or unhappy I was with you."

"The bible condemns intimate relations between members of the same sex, not because they're inherently evil but because they're nongenerative." Helena stopped smoothing and started scrubbing with her finger at a spot on the tablecloth. "I have more balls than half the men in this town, but that's the one thing I can't give you."

"Helena, none of this is about giving me things." Myka nodded toward the kitchen. "Perhaps we should be talking somewhere more private."

Helena rolled her shoulders indifferently. "The Jenningses can't pay for Leena's services. This is why Mary is here tonight, and for no other reason. They would have stoutly advised her to close her ears to anything I say other than 'Please bring in the dishes' and 'Please take away the dishes,' for fear it might corrupt her. They probably would have told her to close her eyes too, but it's so hard to serve when you're walking into walls." She smiled weakly at her own sarcasm.

Even though her hand couldn't reach over to Helena's, Myka extended it, saying "Let's go sit in the library."

Myka had hoped that Helena would sit with her on the sofa by the fire, which Helena freshened by turning the logs with a poker and adding another log to them, but instead she sat in the chair opposite, kneading the skirt of her dress. "When your father said that, about you wanting to be a mother, all I could see was Sheriff Lattimer before you on bended knee."

"I thought you said I would be bored silly having his children. I've taken that to heart," Myka teased, and she leaned forward and squeezed Helena's hand.

"If not him, then some other man," she said morosely.

"You're thinking this way because you're a mother who misses her child." Myka noticed that Helena was worming her hand out from underneath her own. Sighing, Myka released Helena's hand, leaning against the back of the sofa. "I don't share that history with you. I don't have that need, not now and maybe never."

"Yes, one of the many things we don't share, as your father was at pains to point out." Helena said, gazing into the fire.

"There are so many? And you think they're important?" The knot in her forehead, which had magically loosened when her father left, was returning. "How much money you have, what family you came from, what you did before you came to Sweetwater, they don't matter to me." Which wasn't precisely true, but she didn't even entertain the notion of trying to explain to Helena that she didn't see her as the sum of her experiences. Although the Helena drawer in her mind had been overturned many times, she still had the habit of separately noting and cataloguing the things she had learned about her. Yes, all of the things in their entirety had helped to shape Helena, but, as in a kaleidoscope, each piece was individual and distinct. No one fact could color her view of the whole. If she hadn't learned to view people that way, she wouldn't be able to love the unlovable drunk her father had become.

"How can you say that? I am who I am because of them, and they certainly matter to other people, your father, just to name one." She turned her head toward Myka, the darkness of her eyes magnified by the shadows in the room. "How long do you think you can come here late at night before somebody notices and tells your father? Do you think he would let you move in here as my 'companion'? Have you thought about what it would be like, were this relationship of ours to continue, whether here or elsewhere? You would have no status; you would never be my spouse. There would be no children, should you want them. It would be very different from the kind of life you grew up imagining for yourself."

"Thank for you concluding that it would be such a hardship for me," Myka said, her irritation building. "What other decisions are you in the process of making for me?" She tilted her head, arrested suddenly by an unwelcome thought. "When you leave Sweetwater, are you even going to pretend to ask me to come with you? Or are you going to show up at my door, bags in hand, saying you're catching the next train out?"

Helena smiled, although it held no humor. "Did you just hear yourself? I'm the one leaving, I'm the one who's 'pretending' to ask you to come with me. You wouldn't be saying this if you hadn't already decided that you wouldn't leave. You've made your choice, Myka, before I've even put you to the test."

"No, no." Myka vigorously shook her head. "You've misunderstood. I can't leave him, I'm all he has. Maybe you think –"

"Think it's easy because I've left behind someone who depended on me?" Helena's smile was broader, although it trembled at the corners, and Myka thought that it wouldn't take much for the upper lip to move up and the bottom lip to move down in a snarl. She snapped her fingers. "I've learned to do it just like that, which is why, of course, when I tell you I'm leaving Sweetwater, I'll be on your doorstep, bags in hand."

"That's not what I meant to say."

"Funny, how things that aren't meant to be said are the very things that get said." Helena pushed herself up, wrapping her skirt around her, as if she were afraid it might touch some part of Myka, as she stalked past her. "I'm glad to see that by opening myself up to you I've made you trust in me even less." When Myka didn't move, she said icily, "I need to check on Mary, and I'll have to take her home.”

Myka knew she was being dismissed and recognized that it was probably better if she did leave. But it was warm by the fire, and she was so very tired all of a sudden. She hadn't meant to suggest any of what Helena had leapt to, but she couldn't remember now what she had been on the verge of saying. Her father's hammering had merely joined in with the self-punishing voices always at work in Helena's mind, and Helena was too busy listening to them to hear anyone else. She straightened her shoulders; she might feel defeated, but she wasn't going to show it. She had displayed considerable forbearance of two of the most difficult people she knew for a long stretch of the evening, and she needn't feel guilty or ashamed of anything she had said.

Helena was in the hallway, managing to look both lost and impatient. Myka stopped in front of her and she saw, battling with the pride and the anger in Helena's face, the fear that she would actually leave. Feeling a tug of pity within her, she wanted to cup that face, but Helena wasn't yet ready to accept it and, frankly, Myka acknowledged to herself, she wasn't yet ready to signal to Helena that she was forgiven. "It wounds me that you believe I would think of you so poorly," she said. "How can you expect me to trust in you when you show so little trust yourself?" Helena didn't answer, her mouth set unhappily. Letting her fingers trail gently over Helena's hand before she turned away from her, Myka braced herself for the cold walk home.

She lay in bed, hearing her father's snores from the other room. He had made it home under his own power, but as he cursed the walls he bumped against and began a louder railing against the buttons that wouldn't unbutton, she almost wished that one of his cronies from the Spur or Pete had brought him home. She did love him, or at least the girl she had been when he still smelled of just peppermint and tobacco loved him. His laying claim to her future tonight hadn't surprised her; Tracy had lost no time once she turned seventeen in finding a man, older but meek and easily led, who would marry her and take her back to his family's home in Kansas City, which was far from the little Arizona mining town the Berings were living in at the time. She had swiftly and successfully given Kevin three children, and if her latest letter was any indication, Myka was fairly certain a fourth one was on the way. There was no room for their father in that household, and though he would occasionally reminisce about how sweet and darling Tracy had been as a girl, he showed no strong desire to visit her or his grandchildren, content to read her letters and to add a scrawled line or two to the ones that Myka sent in reply. While he would never acknowledge it, he had grown dependent on Myka, and not only on her ability to run the paper more or less independently of his direction. She would always see to it that he returned home, whether she had to brave the saloons to find him or wait for the sheriff to release him from jail, and she didn't admonish him for his drinking or try to hide his bottles. She had learned early on that neither was an effective deterrent. With Mrs. Grabel's help, their rooms were halfway tidy and meals were palatable, not just edible, and whatever his minimal emotional needs were, Myka could assume she met them as well.

Helena had threatened to upset all that, although "all that" was pitifully meager. Her interest in Myka and the money she could spend to ensure that the interest was returned, from her father's point of view, would only draw Myka away. Helena's life had no room for Warren Bering either. He had fought for her this evening, Myka mused; he had acted entirely out of self-interest, she knew, but it was one of the few times she could remember, since he had started drinking, anyway, that he had, if tacitly, admitted that she was important to him.

She punched her pillow and rolled onto her side. She didn't need to look at a clock to know that she would have already left for Helena's, been at Helena's, had the evening not turned out the way that it did. There was a certain quality to the night, how its silence continued to deepen, which marked the passing of its hours. It was almost one o'clock, she estimated, and Sweetwater was settling into a sounder sleep, but it wasn't yet the sleep beyond dreams that would come later, when it was two and three and even four, when she and Helena were fighting sleep to stay joined, touching. That was also how she knew what time it was, her body growing soft in some places and hard in others, wanting Helena on top of her, beneath her, in her. There had been occasions with Sam, when their 'stargazing' had nearly become something else until she had stopped it, that had left her frustrated, punching her pillow and rolling back and forth, until Tracy would kick her. But not like this. And there had been other occasions, when she and Sam had argued and he would bring her home in the carriage and then fly away without even saying goodnight, that had left her missing him, once her anger had cooled. But nothing like this. She had never ached for someone like this. She had never thought that if Sam didn't touch her, right this minute, this second, even though she wasn't through with being angry with him, she would combust in her bed. She was annoyed with Helena and hurt and the part of her that her father had praised for being like her mother was counseling her to turn her thoughts in a different direction, to wait the night out, maybe two. But she was also her father's daughter apparently, because she couldn't think of anyone or anything else and she couldn't wait. Even if the door to the kitchen was locked, even if Helena would only turn her away. As she flung her nightgown off and hurried to put on a dress, she wondered if this was similar to the need her father felt for liquor, so gnawing and desperate that he would literally claw his way through any obstacle to satisfy it. If her father were to wake and stand in front of the door to prevent her from going to Helena, she would push him aside, she would let him fall without giving him a backward look.

But he didn't wake up, he was still snoring as she closed the kitchen door behind her. She had had enough presence of mind to bring a shawl with her, but her legs were bare and her feet, lacking stockings, were already curling in her shoes from the cold. Running lightly down the street to where it ended in the prairie, Myka turned and began cutting across it toward Helena's house. She was well beyond the houses and, more importantly, the dogs that so zealously barked when someone entered their territory. Foolish woman, did Helena really think she didn't realize that some night someone would see her? But it was all she could do sometimes to force herself from Helena's bed, even when she could see the fading of the night from black to blue and knew that she needed to leave, before the stableboy opened the livery's doors, before the stationmaster left his home for the train station. It was harder than she had ever anticipated to exchange a few polite words with Helena in the street when what she wanted was to crush Helena to her and hear that half-laugh, half-gasp Helena would breathe into her neck when Myka surprised and pleased her both at once. But this late at night, the endless small betrayals of her feelings, which she felt helpless to hide during the day, weren't visible to others.

As she approached Helena's house, she could see a flickering of light from the library, the remains of the fire perhaps, but that was the only light she saw. Myka gave the knob of the kitchen door a half-hearted twist and felt her heart skip a beat when the door opened. She entered, her steps tentative, and as she rounded the table she tried to peer through the gloom into the hallway, but she saw nothing and the only sound was the creak of floorboards under her shoes. Venturing closer to the staircase, she stopped when she heard Helena's voice, quiet but not sleepy, coming from the library. "Leena, is that you?"

That was why the door hadn't been locked. Myka felt her stomach lift and then drop in disappointment. "No, it's me."

"Myka?" Now Helena did sound befuddled, and Myka quickened her pace, slowing only when she was at the library's threshold. Helena was sitting up on the sofa, her chignon half unraveled and her hair beginning to spill over her shoulders. She was still wearing her dress, but she had unbuttoned the collar, the line of her collarbone forming the base of a triangle of bared skin, the apex of which disappeared in the shadow between her breasts. "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't like the way we left things tonight." Since Helena hadn't yet asked her to leave, Myka sidled farther into the room.

"Neither did I." Helena was reflexively trying to tuck her hair back into its knot. Her fingers worked busily for a few seconds then froze, and she let her hands fall to her lap. "I stayed down here because I didn't want to sleep in my bed. I've already gotten used to sharing it with you."

Myka had never known she could feel such need and such tenderness at the same time. That was yet another thing being with Sam had never taught her. Not sure but what her knees wouldn't give out on her before she got to the sofa, she crept to the rug and settled in front of Helena's legs and looked up at her. "If I had half the common sense my father thinks I do, I wouldn't be here. I know he behaved badly and I understand why you were angry, but for you to think that I would mention your daughter only to hurt you. . . ." She sucked in a deep breath. "That was a low blow, Helena."

"I'm sorry," Helena said helplessly. "I know how to order people to do what I want – I know how to talk down to them, as Leena sometimes says – I know how to cajole or coax or amuse them, when I have to, but I don't know how to talk with them. Other than Leena and Claudia, you're the only true friend I've had. But compared to them," she stopped and drew in a deep breath of her own. "there is no comparison." She bent forward and touched Myka's hair gingerly, ever so lightly moving her fingers through its strands. "This is one area where I am most definitely a novice."

Helena's movement had caused the sides of her jacket, already loosened, to relax even further, and Myka could make out the tops of her breasts, which seemed to swell as Helena breathed in and not in the least diminish as she breathed out. Feeling her tenderness give way to the ache that had urged her here, Myka wanted to pull Helena down to the rug, but the look wasn't there in Helena's eyes, not yet. Instead her eyes looked at Myka with bafflement and a plea for reassurance, and Myka said, with more honesty than she had intended since she doubted Helena would find reassurance in her words, "Sam never prepared me for you."

"Then we're both novices." Her voice had a teasing lilt, but her smile was sad. "We'll make mistakes."

Myka nodded. Helena's hand slipped behind Myka's ear and then traced the line of her jaw. "I could feel you withdrawing from me, especially when you thought I was referring to Christina. Don't shut me out, Helena. It's the worst thing you can do to me."

"Be patient with me." There was sincerity in it but slyness too, and as Myka looked up at her, the look was there, that same challenging, almost taunting look Helena had given her when she had been on the verge of stomping out of Helena's kitchen the night of the grass fire. She had been angry then, but there had been something else at work in her as well, something just as hot and unyielding as her anger but even more ungovernable because she really had meant to fling open the door and stride as best she could through Helena's yard, even if the striding looked suspiciously like hobbling. Instead she had nearly torn Helena's nightgown off her in her eagerness to touch her. And now there was the smile too, not a little arrogant either, which Myka didn't at all mind at this moment, and this time Helena was saying, bending even closer, "You're so tired of being patient, aren't you?"

"It's not an inexhaustible store," Myka agreed as she grabbed Helena around the waist and pulled her down from the sofa on top of her. She was more practiced now, somewhat, and knew how to get Helena out of her clothes without damaging them, but as her mouth found one of Helena's breasts and Helena arched and moved against her, she knew that tonight Helena would welcome the roughness, and she pulled at the rest of the jacket's buttons without care. Helena moaned, drawing back, and in the light from the fire, Myka saw the glint of the chain holding the locket. The possessiveness that suddenly surged through her was overwhelming in its intensity, and though the locket had always been there before, tonight Myka wanted no memories, no shadows between them, not even Christina. She reached for the clasp of the necklace, and Helena drew farther back, puzzled. "Just you, only you" was all Myka could say, and Helena, still not quite comprehending, nevertheless unclasped the necklace and leaned over to deposit it on one of the sofa's cushions.

As Myka awkwardly sat up, because even just a few inches away from her, Helena was too far away, and groped for Helena's dress to pull her back down, Helena pushed at her shoulders in slight, but real, resistance. Myka stopped, balancing herself on her hands, and looked at Helena. "Me and only me?" At Myka's nod, Helena smiled, and it was triumphant and suggestive and wicked in a way that only made Myka ache all the more and "Please" was out of her mouth before she could stop it. Helena pushed her back down on the rug and whispered in her ear, "Be careful what you ask for."

Myka had had no idea that there could be so many Helenas and all so multiform, but she had each and every one of them, sometimes more than once. The sky was gray, and the stableboy had long since opened the doors to the livery and the stationmaster was at the station sweeping the platform, and Myka was still on the library floor, Helena over her, and she was crying out as it seemed she had never stopped doing from the moment Helena had pushed her back onto the rug. She had cried out many things, mostly garbled phrases, nonsense words, but sometimes Helena's name and Christ's, and now when she was too sore, too worn out to be coming this hard again, but she was because the ache was still there and Helena, sensing it, was being especially relentless, she was crying out something that Helena had no right to drag out of her, that actually was a cry because she could feel the tears forming in her eyes as she said it. "Don't leave me. Don't leave me." Helena stopped and gathered her in her arms, because Myka was sobbing in earnest and resenting every tear and shuddering breath, and Helena was saying, her own voice breaking too, "Never, love, never."

 


	17. Chapter 17

Myka emptied the jar that held her pin money, but only a few coins rattled onto the counter. It was Saturday, when she paid Mrs. Grabel, who would stop by before she went shopping. Usually Myka's father gave her the money on Friday so she would have it on hand on Saturday morning, since he certainly didn't plan to be awake to give it to Mrs. Grabel. But he hadn't given her any money yesterday. Myka spread the coins on the counter; she knew there should have been more money than this, enough, although barely enough, to pay Mrs. Grabel. Her face tight with anger, she left the kitchen and quietly opened the door to her father's bedroom. Only the crown of his head peeped from the quilts; were she not furious with him, she might have found it amusing how his snores seemed to emanate from the bed itself. He turned restlessly as she crept across the floor to pick up his trousers and search the pockets. Nothing. She draped them back over the chair and as fruitlessly searched the pockets of his frock coat. Closing the door softly behind her, although she felt like slamming it, she returned to the kitchen and stared at the coins. Not even half of what they owed her.

It hadn't gone toward liquor. He didn't need to take her pin money for that. He always had money to buy the Spur's cheap whiskey. What he needed her pin money for was a stake at the poker table in the Spur, either that or he needed to make good on a note to another player. She knew that he would typically sit in for a few hands at whatever game was going on at the Spur, but he rarely played long enough or frequently enough for his losses to be a problem. At least that she was aware of. She sometimes had the uneasy sense that his gambling was, and had been, worse than she knew, but when her pin money was raided, it was a sure sign that he was spending more time at the poker table. If she had had the time, she would have gone to Helena's to borrow the money, grinding her teeth at the necessity with every step, but Mrs. Grabel would be here any minute. At the sudden knock on the kitchen door, Myka grimaced; the old woman was never late, not on a Saturday.

Summoning a smile that she suspected was over bright, Myka welcomed her in. Dressed in unrelieved black, though her husband had been dead for over 30 years, Mrs. Grabel sometimes reminded Myka of the blackbirds that squawked so loudly and disapprovingly from the trees. The perpetual sourness of her face only heightened the similarity. "Mrs. Grabel, would you care for some coffee or tea?" Myka backed toward the counter, wishing she had thought to sweep the coins into the jar and put the jar away. The story they told was all too easy to read.

"No, thank you. I'm just here for what you owe me." Mrs. Grabel sniffed loudly to punctuate her reason for being in the Berings' kitchen on a day when she wasn't required to be there.

Damn blackbird. Myka smoothed the skirt of her dress as a delaying tactic, then shook her head. It was best just to get the unpleasant news over with. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Grabel," she said, "but I have to tell you -–"

"Myka?" The voice carried an accent, but the voice was too light and the accent much too German to be Helena's. Liesl had come in through the _Journal_ 's entrance, and she was standing just outside the kitchen. Her eyes, so startlingly blue, were touching on everything, including Myka's flushed face and the jar on its side with the coins surrounding it. Untying her coin purse from where she had knotted it around her waist, Liesl said easily, "I wanted to stop by and repay the money you lent me." She opened the purse and shook out several silver dollars.

Shooting her a grateful look, Myka took a few from the pile and handed them to Mrs. Grabel. "We'll see you on Monday then," she said pleasantly, as if there had been no hesitation, no blushing, no beginnings of an apology just moments before. Mrs. Grabel took the money with such a suspicious stare that Myka almost expected to see her bite each coin to assure herself that it wasn't counterfeit. With another, even louder sniff, as if Liesl's appearance had introduced yet another distasteful element into the Bering household, Mrs. Grabel jerked her head in the shallowest of farewells. Watching her departing back, Myka wished for the old woman to sprout wings and fly away all the faster.

Turning back toward the table, Myka gestured helplessly at the coins. "Liesl, I can't thank you enough. . . I'll pay you back –"

As Myka's father issued a snore that rattled the decorative dishes hanging on the wall, Liesl smiled and pushed the coins toward her. "Keep them. Claudia won't even know they're missing, or care if she did." Her eyes knowing above the smile, she said quietly, "I know what it's like to find the egg money or milk money gone."

Myka regarded her curiously. Sometimes during their "lessons," which weren't lessons so much as extended conversations about books or the goings-on in Sweetwater and the Territory, Liesl would volunteer information about her childhood in Bavaria, mainly to point up the differences and, occasionally, the similarities between the country she had left and the country she now lived in, but she rarely mentioned her family. Myka knew she had a younger brother, Hans, who was also planning to come to Dakota Territory, and a much younger sister, but that was all she knew. Now she was beginning to understand why Liesl had been so reticent. Trying her best to ignore the coins, Myka went to the stove and lifted a kettle. "The least I can do is offer you a cup of coffee. We have some bread Mrs. Grabel made, if you're hungry."

"Coffee would be nice, thank you." Liesl sat at the table. "I know we don't have a lesson today, but I've been thinking about you since the grass fire. How have you been doing?"

"Much better." Myka brought over two cups of coffee. "The scratches on my face are healing, so I hope I don't look quite so frightening." She wasn't quite ready for Liesl's scrutiny of her face, the way her eyes seemed to trace the shapes of it, the curve of her mouth, the angle of her cheekbones, the line of her nose. It almost felt as if Liesl's fingers, rather than her eyes, were skimming over every tiny indentation and mark, and Myka blushed at the unexpected intimacy of it.

"Yes, they're healing nicely." Liesl's words, in their matter-of-fact confirmation of Myka's assessment, made Myka blush again. This time at how quickly she had bridged the difference between being looked at and being touched. Not every woman was Helena, and not every woman who looked at her wanted to touch her. Myka wished her cup were ten times larger so that she could completely hide her face behind it. "You don't look so much like Frankenstein's monster." It was said with equal matter of factness, and Myka felt another blush beginning to build before she saw the merriment in Liesl's eyes. Laughing with her, Myka's gaze slipped to Liesl's drab brown dress. It dulled the vividness of her coloring and introduced a sallow tint to a complexion as fair as Helena's. Like many of Liesl's dresses, in a former life it had accommodated a much less generously proportioned woman. It was shiny where it stretched over Liesl's broad shoulders and was pulled too tight over her breasts. Myka imagined the material straining to encompass Liesl's hips, and at that thought she nearly bit through the china of her cup, accidentally burning her mouth on the coffee. Had she always been this aware of the lushness of Liesl's figure?

"Are you all right?" Liesl asked, concerned, but her eyes were still merry, as if she knew exactly what thoughts, unbidden and unwanted, were running through Myka's mind.

"Burned my mouth," Myka murmured, glancing toward her alcove and finding refuge in the sight of a book splayed on her bed. One of the books Helena had brought on her visit and which Myka had promised her father she would return. She looked from the book back to Liesl. It really did seem an ideal solution. Leaving Liesl to watch her with interest over the rim of her cup, Myka made a circuit of the alcove's narrow confines, gathering the expensive, leather-bound books. Most of them were stories and poems she had been familiar with since childhood. She brought them into the kitchen and stacked them at the end of the table. "Ready for new reading material?"

Liesl took the topmost book from the stack, a collection of Hawthorne's stories. "I'll be reading two books at once." She smiled. "This and my English dictionary."

For the third or maybe it was the thirty-first time that morning – she had lost count – Myka blushed. "I didn't think. . . .if you'd like something shorter or simpler, I can—"

"I like a challenge," Liesl said firmly.

Her hand, which was curled around the book, was broader and longer than Helena's, and Myka could see the calluses and the old scars that made it more like Myka's own. She imagined that if she were to grasp it, it would feel warm and work-roughened. When she held or touched Helena's hand, she was always conscious of how fine-boned it was. They were surprisingly strong those small hands. . . . Why was she thinking of hands, either Helena's or Liesl's? She stared hard at the stack of books. Hawthorne, Irving, Cooper, Longfellow. Silently repeating the names to herself, she began to relax, and instead of hands, she was picturing lines of text. There was nothing warm or callused or fine-boned about print on paper; it was black on white, as simple as that.

"It will take me awhile to read them all. If you want them back, just send out to the ranch," Liesl said, nodding toward the books.

"They're yours," Myka said bluntly, remembering Thursday's dinner and how her father and Helena had dueled each other from the moment the chicken had been brought out through the serving of the apple tart.

Liesl touched the gold-leaf lettering on the cover and played with the thin fabric bookmark that was sewn into the binding, winding it around her index finger. "I can't, Myka. They are gifts, yes?" She tucked the bookmark under the cover. "From Mrs. Wells? They are very fine-looking."

"I can't keep them," Myka said quietly.

"She's very kind," Liesl said, and Myka didn't miss her slight hesitation before 'kind.'

"She has a generous heart." Myka said, uncomfortable talking about Helena. It wasn't as though she and Liesl were gossiping about Helena, but Myka recalled the odd tension that had developed between the two women as they each had tried to attend to her after the grass fire. It didn't seem disloyal, exactly, to be talking about Helena with Liesl, but she felt that she needed to be discreet. Especially now.

Liesl said, "She seems to feel very strong, strongly?" She tapped the table in frustration. "There's another word I want. Mrs. Wells, she can get excited sometimes. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Passionate," Myka said, without thinking. Fighting yet another blush, she said, "You mean to say that Mrs. Wells can feel passionate about things."

"Yes, she can feel passionate about. . . things." Again a telling hesitation, and Myka's blush was deep and rapid. Uncertain whether the wiser course of action was to respond to Liesl's observation or ignore it, she was silent. Liesl said softly, "She is a woman to admire, yes? Is that the word? But I think I would find her passions. . . tiring."

Myka found it impossible not to think of the nights she had spent with Helena in her bed and, memorably, on the library's rug and not appreciate the literal truth of Liesl's words. But that couldn't have been what Liesl meant, no matter the differences between languages and cultures, such allusions wouldn't be acceptable in polite conversation regardless of whether it took place in Dakota Territory or Bavaria. Even understood as a reference to Helena's passions in general, however, it was a slight, and that Myka couldn't let pass. Choosing her words with as much care as she did when she edited the items that went into the _Journal_ , Myka said slowly, "She's not one to become instantly attached, whether it's to ideas or people, but once she believes, she's devoted to their cause." She wished she could tell Liesl about the railroad spur to Halliday and Helena's plan to stop it; surely Liesl wouldn't find that passion tiring. More forcefully she said, "It's why she bought the _Journal_ and hired my father to run it. She cares enough for the people in Sweetwater to ensure they have a forum for when they want to be heard." Perhaps that had been a little too ringing. She wondered if Liesl's next remark would be in reference to her own "passionate" feelings, and, if so, how she would navigate around it.

But Liesl didn't say anything like it at all, didn't say anything for a while, although her eyes seemed to agree that Myka's defense of Helena had been rather spirited. Their look was one of good-humored surrender and, surprisingly, sympathy. "I knew someone like her, very strong in her feelings, always sure of her decisions. She was from a fine family, very different from mine, but we were friends. Until I didn't share her strong feelings about something. I don't even remember what it was, but after that, she no longer wanted to be my friend."

Myka smiled wanly. She couldn't pretend not to understand such a blunt warning, but, despite Liesl's good intentions, she wasn't sure she could disguise her surge of irritation at hearing yet another caution about Helena. Liesl, however, saved her from the dilemma of responding by saying easily, "But we are different, yes? That's what you're thinking." She gathered up the books. "I'm not keeping them, but I won't bring them back until you tell me to." Awkwardly clutching the books to her chest with one hand, she used the other to push her chair back.

Springing up from the table, Myka said, "Let me get you something to carry them in."

"No need," Liesl said, smiling. "I will leave here, and then Sheriff Lattimer will see me." The smile wavered. "I think the word is magic. He'll see me like magic. No, he'll magically see me," she said triumphantly, "and he will want to carry them for me." The smile was back in full force, but her eyes were sending a different message, one that was more serious and slightly anxious. "He has come out every day since the fire. He asks me to tend to his scratches and tells me I have a 'healing touch.' It's only witch hazel, but he wants to believe it's more."

Myka thought that this, perhaps, was why Liesl had really come to see her, to let her know that Pete had begun calling on her at the ranch. Worrying her bottom lip so that it wouldn't start working with its twin in a smile broader and more confident than Liesl's own, Myka eventually gave up and grinned as Liesl, this time, flushed. "I have no claim on the sheriff. He accompanied me on a few walks and escorted me to the social, but it was nothing more serious than that. If you like him, don't let what I think hold you back." Her grin became impish as she imagined telling Liesl that she had resented the attentions bestowed on her only when Helena had been the one offering smiles and admiring glances like bouquets.

Liesl would make a much better wife for Pete than she ever would, and Myka could reach that conclusion without having to take Helena into account. Liesl could cook and doubtless she could keep a better house, not to mention that, even in her worn, ill-fitting brown dress, she still looked like a fairy tale princess. She might well be charmed by his little boy enthusiasms, and there was something about her – Myka wasn't sure exactly what, but she saw it, maybe in the eyes that so frequently said something other than or in addition to the words she spoke – that suggested Liesl would end up ruling the Lattimer household should Pete ask her to share it with him

Liesl inclined her head, as if she were listening to something Myka hadn't said or to an inner voice that was interjecting. The pause was brief, but when Liesl's eyes met hers and she said, almost musingly, "He is a very nice man, too nice, I think," Myka feared that Pete's courtship of Liesl, even if ultimately successful, would be a long and arduous one.

A door slammed and footsteps dragged unevenly on the floor. Myka's father leaned through the doorway, balancing himself by gripping the jambs with both hands. He was dressed, but he would need to rebutton his shirt, and his face was wet, although he had probably done no more than splash a handful of water or two on it. "Is breakfast ready?" he growled.

"Soon," Myka assured him. He glanced blearily at Liesl before he pushed himself away from the doorway. "Dad, this is Liesl Albrecht. I've told you about her." She had, in fact, mentioned to her father several times that she was helping Liesl with her English, and each time her father would ask her, "Is she paying you?" and then snort in disgust at Myka's answer.

He noticed the books Liesl was holding and looked at Myka, his displeasure obvious. "I thought I told you to return those books to Mrs. Wells."

"I thought I could put them to better use by giving them to Liesl to read."

He only grunted as he turned away from the kitchen and shuffled through the parlor, making his way, Myka knew, to the desk where he kept his bottles. Liesl watched his retreating back, and her face turned bleak and unforgiving, all that was princess-like gone in a flash of resentment that owed far more to memories, Myka realized, than to the sad spectacle of her father. Liesl looked down at the books she was carrying, shifting their weight, and when she raised her face to Myka's, her expression was, if not sunny, then free of the anger that had hardened it just a moment before.

"I should be going," she said, and they stepped around one another in a clumsy dance as Myka tried to open the kitchen door for her. The tips of her fingers touched Myka's hand as she twisted the knob. "I look forward to our lessons, Myka, and it's not only because I can practice my English." The look in her eyes and the sincerity of her voice were in synchrony. "I think of you as a friend. I hope you feel the same."

"Of course," Myka said automatically, but, if she were honest, until this moment she had never stopped to consider whether Liesl was a friend. She had enjoyed their conversations, and she was overawed by Liesl's beauty, but she had cataloged her as the "German girl I'm helping" when she wasn't thinking of her as a Rose Red or Sleeping Beauty banished by an evil queen to Sweetwater.

Liesl registered how hastily she had replied, but this time her voice was the more knowing while her eyes blinked innocently at Myka. "But we still have much to learn about each other, yes?" She glanced at her books. "A good thing that we'll have more books to talk about. Until next Saturday, then."

"Until next Saturday," Myka repeated as Liesl stopped to shift the books once more, the sun burnishing the gold of her hair. Marveling that a person could actually step from the pages of a story and half-expecting a fairy godmother to appear and touch Liesl with her wand, Myka closed the door and started to prepare breakfast for her father, which consisted, as it usually did these mornings, of coffee, more coffee, and whatever was left over from the previous day that she didn't think his roiling stomach would reject. This morning she thought he might be able to eat some canned pears that they hadn't been able to finish last night.

He drank the coffee but pushed the pears away, declaring that he wanted eggs and the tinned beef that they also hadn't finished last night. Myka fried both and pretended that she didn't see him take a flask from his trousers and pour its contents into his cup. "I heard you and that girl talking. Did she say the sheriff's been sparking her over at the Donovan ranch?"

Myka brought the plate of eggs and beef over to him, both cooked to the same shade of brown. "He's been visiting her, yes."

"You could have had him, but you were too taken by Helena Wells and her airs and her money to give him the time of day." He attacked his eggs, and Myka feared that, in their petrified state, they might resist the charge of his knife and fork.

"I didn't want him," Myka said, taking the chair next to him. "Not as a husband." Her father had managed to lay waste to one egg but was having a harder time with the beef, which he chased around his plate.

"You're not getting any younger," he warned. "If you want a family, you can't turn your nose up at every man you meet. I suppose Mrs. Wells has convinced you there's some knight in shining armor who'll fight dragons to win you. Let me inform you, there's not."

Myka silently agreed, thinking precious few men would be willing to take on the ailing dragon that was her father. "I don't know that I want a husband or children." She took a steadying breath before she said, "To be honest, I don't think I ever will."

He stopped pursuing the last bit of beef. "It's one thing not to want a man in your life if you're as rich as Helena Wells. But I'll be leaving you and your sister precious little when I'm called to join your mother. And I do want more for you, Myka, than a life as a nursemaid for Tracy's brood." He interlaced his fingers over his plate and rested his chin on them, giving her a look of mingled affection and worry.

Myka was almost moved to lean over and hug him. Almost. But she knew the concern, like all of his occasional displays of paternal pride or interest, would be drowned in the next drink. "Maybe Helena and I will still be friends, and she'll take me in." She had said it lightly, but her heart was beating hard and fast.

Her father made a derisive noise. "You can bet I'll be rolling over in my grave if that happens." Eyeing the dish of pears he had pushed away earlier, he used his knife to push the dish closer to him. "You know what people would be saying if you ever took up house with her."

"I'm not sure I do. What do you think they would be saying?" She could barely speak over her heart, which was now beating in her mouth.

"They'd be saying she corrupted you." He shifted uncomfortably in her chair. "There are words for women like her, for what she does."

"I know people think she's a prostitute because she runs girls out of the Spur. I don't know what else they would be calling her." Myka knew she was being disingenuous, but she was certain that her father was so embarrassed to be talking with her about anything that touched on intimate matters that he wouldn't be able to hear the sarcasm in her voice

Her father was also too embarrassed to meet her eyes, staring down, instead, at the pears. "Once you get a name like that, it's all too easy to get other ones as well. People would be accusing the two of you of getting up to all sorts of things. Unnatural things."

They had gotten to this point before about her closeness with Helena, and she had deferred to his wishes, with the exception of the time she had gone to visit Helena at her ranch. Since then she hadn't openly defied him about her, and she didn't want to now, but she needed to let him know that the life he still hoped that she would have wouldn't be the life she would lead, most likely, once he was gone. In the end, it didn't matter whether Helena left Sweetwater or stayed, because the decisions were her own to make, no one else's.

"I judge people on their own merits, not by what's said about them. I was wrong about Sam and I'm sure I'll be wrong about others, but not about Helena. Whether I marry or take up house with Helena or someone else, I'll do it because I'll believe it's the right thing for me to do, not because it will or won't please people." She hadn't realized that she had grabbed his hand as she was speaking until he wrenched it away from hers. He rose from the table so quickly and violently that the oilcloth flipped over and covered his dishes. She had to say it, even if she was saying it only to his back. "If I was alone and Helena asked me to share her home or to leave Sweetwater and journey with her elsewhere, I would. I wouldn't care what people called us."

Looking back at her over his shoulder, he said, "Then I guess I'll have to live forever, won't I?"

She thought about his words later, as she lay next to Helena. She imagined the both of them, her and her father, equally aged and decrepit, living in the back rooms of the _J_ _ournal_ 's office, Helena long since having left Sweetwater, an old woman herself by now, grousing from her rocking chair at Christina's grandchildren or quarreling with an elderly Leena. Amused and saddened by the picture, she lifted her head and saw outside the bedroom's windows that the night was beginning to fade. She needed to leave soon. Sighing, she sank down into the bed to take a few last drowsy kisses from Helena, who was snuggling closer to her.

Groaning a little as she turned away from Helena, Myka began to slide toward the side of the mattress. Helena reached an arm around Myka's waist and dragged her back. "I saw Liesl Albrecht in town earlier with an armful of books that looked very much like the ones I had given to your father. Or, should I say, Sheriff Lattimer had an armful of books." Soft and apologetic, she said, "Have I contaminated even the likes of _The Leatherstocking Tales_ for your father?"

Myka twisted around to kiss her forehead. "There was no chance once he saw _The Scarlet Letter_ ," she said teasingly. "I thought giving them to Liesl was a better thing to do than to give them back to you." She needed to move out of Helena's embrace and dress and creep away from her house; on Sundays, Sweetwater rose later, but she had already stayed too long as it was, though it was almost impossible to leave Helena when she was like this, sleepily refusing to let her go, completely unlike the haughty woman who had greeted her in the parlor on Thursday. In fact, she was so unguarded when they were interlocked deep in her bed, the night a curtain that the bedroom seemed to have drawn around them, Myka allowed herself to believe that Helena's trust in her was complete. Giving up the struggle to leave, she began peppering Helena's face with kisses until Helena laughed and pushed her away.

"If the sheriff and Miss Albrecht are making eyes at each other, that means neither is making eyes at you," Helena said with satisfaction. She clambered over Myka and tried to pin her to the bed. "I have regretted suggesting that you help her with her English."

"Liesl's not interested in me in like that," Myka protested.

"So you think," Helena said, wriggling to avoid Myka's tickling fingers.

"The only one I want making eyes at me is you." Myka looked up at her. "But there was a time when I thought you were making eyes at her." As Helena's brows creased in puzzlement, Myka felt obligated to explain what she had meant, although she was berating herself for letting Liesl become a distraction from a much more desirable distraction. "You said once that she reminded you of someone. Someone important to you, it seemed."

"She does, but not as much as she once did." Helena bent her head and kissed the side of Myka's neck. "Are you jealous?" Helena sighed it next to Myka's skin. As Myka squirmed, Helena's lips grazed the goosebumps prickling her neck. "You needn't be. Monika's only a memory now, and she never meant to me what you do." Helena pushed herself up, suddenly somber. "But I was careless with her, in ways that I wasn't even aware of. I won't make the same mistake with you."

"Helena," Myka murmured, cupping her face and bringing it down to hers. "I'm not made of glass, I won't break."

"You might," Helena said half-seriously, momentarily resisting the kiss, "if I'm not careful."

"Did someone hurt her? Is that why you ran off to MacPherson’s ranch after the grass fire?" Myka lifted her head and gently took Helena's bottom lip between her teeth.

Helena let Myka nibble her lip before drawing her into a deeper kiss, ending it before Myka was ready. As Myka grumbled in protest, Helena said, "I was too late to help her, but I made the person responsible pay dearly. I meant what I said about destroying anyone who would hurt you."

"There are limits," Myka admonished her, but her sternness was undercut by her gasp when Helena's tongue began to lave her breast. "You frighten me," she said, her voice trailing away to a whisper as Helena moved to her other breast, "when you talk like this."

Helena looked up at her, her eyes as dark as Myka had ever seen them. "I have no limits where you're concerned." With a swiftness that had Myka suddenly swallowing, Helena was balancing herself over her, knee parting Myka's legs with sure authority. "It doesn't only frighten you, does it?" She pushed up as Myka moaned, and as Myka dissolved in shivers, she had to acknowledge the truth of Helena's claim.

#####

The train ride to Bismarck was as long and as dull as Helena had warned her that it would be. Had Myka not known better, she would have thought that the train was only making a circuit around Sweetwater. The same flat sweep of prairie, the same ramshackle farm houses, she would have sworn that even the number of cows grazing the brittle grass was the same. Although she had brought books with her to read, she had spent most of her time sleeping. Despite Helena's urging that she stay home Sunday night since they would be taking a very early train from Sweetwater the next morning, Myka hadn't wanted to, couldn't force herself to, and it wasn't disappointment that was in Helena's face when Myka had crossed the threshold of her bedroom after midnight.

Her father had slept much of the trip too, and Myka thought they must have made a lovely pair, their mouths open, heads lolling against their seats, although Myka had been able to rest her head on her father's arm. But the two men sitting across from them had been absorbed in the card game they were playing, using the few spare inches of their seats to hold the discard and draw piles. Helena was several seats ahead of where Myka and her father were sitting, and Myka had used the excuse of needing to stretch her legs to walk the aisle in her direction. Helena would sidle her a look as she turned a page of the book she was reading, and Myka would offer her a small smile in acknowledgment. She seemed not in the least exhausted, although Myka had left her only an hour before they were due at the train station, and they had not wasted any of their time together sleeping.

When they arrived at Bismarck, whose clutch of weather-beaten buildings was almost indistinguishable from Sweetwater's except for the fact that there were more of them, Myka and her father walked to the hotel, her father curtly dismissing Helena's offer to share the buggy she had hired to meet them. Entering the lobby, they saw Helena at the desk, arguing with the clerk. "But the rooms have been reserved. I telegraphed instructions on Friday."

The clerk shrugged indifferently, working a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. "You can reserve 'em. You just can't stay in 'em without your husband."

"I've had no problem staying in this hotel before when my husband hasn't been able to accompany me," Helena said coldly.

"Can't speak to what was done before. Ladies can't stay in this hotel unaccompanied by their menfolk, plain and simple. Them's the rules." The clerk folded his hands together over the register and looked at her blandly.

Myka poked her father in the ribs, who had been enjoying the show. "Please do something."

With a sigh almost as theatrical as one Helena might exhale, he approached the desk, Myka following. Standing beside Helena, he growled, "Mrs. Wells is with me and my daughter." The clerk looked at Warren Bering's grizzled face, inexpertly shaved, and his bloodshot eyes. He opened his mouth, as if to dismiss Warren's attempt to intercede, but before he could say a word, Myka's father clamped his hand on the man's arm. "You heard me, now give her a room."

The clerk didn't look again into Warren Bering's eyes. Instead he backed slowly toward the wall behind him, which was lined with hooks holding room keys. He plucked two from their hooks and handed them to Myka's father. "Thank you," Warren Bering muttered sarcastically, guiding Myka and Helena away from the desk.

As they climbed the stairs, Myka's father carrying both his and Myka's travel bag and Helena's valise, Helena stopped on the stair above him and turned to face him. "I appreciate your rescuing me from an awkward situation." She summoned a grateful smile, which he ignored by looking down over the railing into the lobby of the hotel. Adjusting his grip on her valise, he said nothing and motioned with it toward the head of the stairs. Helena understood the gesture and, smile disappearing, climbed the remaining stairs with more haste than was necessary.

Their rooms were next to one another, which caused Myka's father to sourly frown and Myka and Helena to exchange a hopeful look. Their hopes were dashed when he handed Helena her key and said, "Have a good evening, Mrs. Wells. Myka and I'll see you in the lobby tomorrow morning."

Cool and clipped, she said, "Early tomorrow morning, Mr. Bering. We have a lot to accomplish by the end of the day."

A short time after they were in their room, they heard the door to Helena's room open and then close, and Myka imagined her looking for some eatery in Bismarck that would welcome an unaccompanied woman. She looked with distaste at the sandwich she was eating; her father had told her to pack them a lunch and a dinner because he refused both to suffer the "highway robbery of the restaurants in Bismarck" and to allow Helena to pay for their meals. When Myka had tried to point out that he had allowed Helena or, rather, the _Journal_ to pay for their train tickets and hotel room, he had only given her a withering glare and told her to make the sandwiches. There was logic to her father's behavior; he wanted to limit her interactions with Helena. To that end, her father didn't leave the room to visit any of Bismarck's saloons. He sat in a worn, overstuffed chair and nipped at his flask. He kept nipping at it until he fell asleep in the chair, and Myka didn't attempt to wake him. She lay, fully dressed, on top of the bed, far over to one side. She had heard Helena return to her room, and she had spent the intervening time imagining Helena undressing and laying out a nightgown. Dwelling on each movement, how Helena would take the pins from her hair and fold each item of clothing as she removed it, Myka still had Helena dressed in her chemise and stockings and over an hour had passed. She fully anticipated that the effort of imagining Helena putting on the nightgown might take another half-hour. She had nothing but time, and she wasn't the least bit sleepy.

But she must have fallen asleep at some point, before she had been able to picture Helena drawing the nightgown down over her breasts and hips. She heard noises from Helena's room, even above her father's snores, which suggested that Helena was moving about, and the grime covering the sole window of their room was a lighter gray in the sun's weak light. They trooped down to the lobby some twenty minutes later, she and her father, and she felt that they still looked rumpled and unkempt from the train ride. Attempts to tame her hair had failed and her dress was abysmally wrinkled, while her father's frock coat and shirt bore evidence of the sandwich he had eaten the night before. As usual, Helena was impeccably turned out, hair up in a sleek twist and her dress looking as though it had been freshly pressed, but it was a surprisingly plain dress, a sober gray, and her only adornment was the locket. Myka had expected Helena to look far grander for a meeting with Wesley Kimball.

But she, and by extension Myka, was not meeting with Mr. Kimball. Myka's father was. In a restaurant next door to the hotel, over a breakfast that Myka thought might rank with her own in terms of being barely edible, Helena outlined her plan for Wesley Kimball. She had arranged, via telegram the previous week, for Mr. Kimball to meet with the _Journal_ 's editor to discuss the railroad's plans for expansion and improvement of service in Dakota Territory. "An interview over lunch," she emphasized to Myka's father. "I believe there's one establishment here that tries to pass itself off as a gentleman's club. At the very least it's a nicer saloon than most. The  _Journal_  will cover the meal and all. . . incidentals."

Myka's father had taken no notice of the bitter coffee or the rancid bacon. Sopping up the yolk of his eggs with bread that might have been made the week before, he seemed to relish its crunch. "Why such a leisurely lunch?" he asked. "It's almost as if you want to get him away from his office."

Helena offered him an enigmatic smile. "I do want him out of his office and I want him to feel at ease. He might be willing to tell you more than he ordinarily would if he's thinking the interview is more of a chat over drinks. I don't want to interrogate him, Mr. Bering. I would like us to put him in a position where he'll volunteer the information."

Myka's father didn't appear convinced. "Then having Myka as a note-taker at the lunch would be something of an impediment to his talking freely," he said dryly.

"Yes." Helena briefly looked in Myka's direction. "Myka would be more useful in researching something that may be in the Territory's official records. I'm interested in finding any documents that would clearly establish what land the Territory has granted the railroad for future expansion. I imagine that it will take up much of her day." She settled a cool gaze on Myka's father. "I assume you have no objection to Myka spending her time amongst boxes of records?"

There would be no besmirching of her reputation by scores of legal documents, no imperious-looking black-eyed clerks who would be attempting to entice her into some dark corner of the room. Her father couldn't object to that, and he didn't. "So long as she's willing to do it."

Still not understanding this change in plans – she was supposed to have accompanied Helena to Wesley Kimball's office – Myka murmured her consent. Her father rose, to buy a cigar, he said, and catch up on the capital's news. Myka was positive that if she passed through the hotel's lobby in an hour she would see him sprawled in a chair asleep, a newspaper covering his chest and several covering his feet. Helena, on the other hand, seemed in no hurry to leave, signaling to a passing waiter to bring her another cup of coffee.

"I thought I was supposed to be helping you find that guaranty Charlie Graves told me about," Myka said quietly, "not looking through records for contracts."

"And you will be," Helena said just as quietly, "but I could hardly tell your father that, could I? Besides, although I've come to think that the Territory could be run better by circus horses, our esteemed legislators must have affixed their X's to an occasional document, and those must be stored somewhere. We might be able to find something useful." She smiled winningly at the waiter who was placing the cup in front of her, and, smiling dazedly back at her, he nearly spilled the coffee on her.

"How can you drink that?" Myka pointed to the cup. "It's worse than what I make."

"Because I spent all night tossing and turning knowing you were just one thin wall away from me," Helena said, sipping her coffee without grimacing. Seeing Myka's expression grow tender, she added mischievously, "One thin wall and one loudly snoring father away."

Myka narrowed her eyes in mock annoyance, but Helena drank her coffee unperturbed. They left the restaurant in search of the building that housed the Territory's official records. Considerably more people were out on Bismarck's main street than would ever be seen in Sweetwater, drummers and merchants mingling with farmers and ranchers, but few seemed to know where the government offices were located. Two men pointed them in opposite directions, and Helena, with grim determination, marched into a barbershop to ask any of the men waiting for shaves and trims if they knew where the offices were. The barber himself supplied Helena with directions, and as she took Myka's elbow to guide her across the street, Helena muttered under her breath that circus horses deserved better than the inhabitants of Dakota Territory.

The building they were directed to had a tiny room filled with boxes in which the records of the legislature were kept, and when Myka asked if they could look through the box in which any documents pertaining to the railroad were stored, the clerk, who could have easily been brother to the one in the hotel, with his casually disdainful air and the casually disdainful cant of his toothpick, waved his hand at all the boxes and said "Take your pick."

The boxes were labeled, although the handwriting wasn't legible, and Myka chose the one nearest to them, clearing her throat as an indication for the clerk to offer to take it to a small reading table for them. He ignored the noise, too engrossed in his dime western, until Helena tore the book from his hands and said, "I believe they pay you to work, do they not?" With a great huff of irritation, he lifted the box onto the table for them and returned to his desk, Helena muttering darkly again about circus horses and how they might, if stuck in this godforsaken Territory, trample its inhabitants to death.

After paging through minutes of various committee meetings, Myka asked, "What is your plan for getting into Mr. Kimball's office?"

"I don't really have one," Helena admitted, "other than waiting for him and his secretary to leave for lunch."

"And if the guaranty is locked away, or Mr. Kimball's secretary takes his lunch in his office?

"Then we'll improvise," Helena said, shrugging her shoulders.

Myka raised her eyebrows but didn't say anything, returning to her review of committee minutes, which was one of unrelieved boredom until she began to notice a pattern. In the minutes of the committee that reviewed proposed changes to or exemptions from the Territory's taxes, she saw a number of requested exemptions submitted by the railroad and the committee members who voted in favor of sending the changes or exemptions to a full vote by the legislature were the same. These legislators were also on the committee that reviewed proposals to purchase or rent government land for use, many of them submitted by the railroad, and again they were the ones who invariably voted to put the railroad's proposals before the legislature. Myka began to dig through the box in earnest, prompting Helena to stop her desultory reading of a contract to ask what had led to her flurry of activity.

"Have you come across any roll calls, any tallying of votes when the legislature was in session?" Myka peered over the box at the stack of documents Helena had gone through. When Helena shook her head, Myka walked briskly to where the clerk was sitting, and while she didn't rip the book from his hands, she cleared her throat very loudly as she stood next to him. When he raised his head, she pointed to the other boxes and said as peremptorily as she could manage, "We require your assistance." It didn't ring with Helena's authority, but it was enough, perhaps aided by a glower from Helena at the table, to compel the clerk to start bringing over boxes.

Eight boxes later, Myka found what she was looking for, the legislators from the tax and land use committees who voted to send the railroad's proposals to the full legislature for a vote were invariably listed among those voting in favor of the railroad. She cleared a space on another table and laid out the minutes from the committees and the roll calls for votes, and Helena reviewed them over Myka's shoulder. "Their votes were probably bought," she said, "which isn't surprising. That's how the railroads operate."

"It's one thing to suspect that your government officials are in the pockets of the railroad. It's another to see it in black and white," Myka countered.

Helena glanced from the minutes to the roll calls and back again. "We're going to borrow these for awhile. I don't think our trusted public servant over there is going to mind." She pointed at the clerk, who was once more hunched over his western. Taking the documents and rolling them up, Helena nonchalantly walked toward the front of the office, hiding the tube of papers in the folds of her skirt; the clerk only grunted in response to her cheery farewell, not bothering to lift his eyes from his book.

Once outside, she decisively slapped her palm with the tube. "Now we're off to Mr. Kimball's office. He should have left by now to meet your father, and, with any luck, his secretary will be taking his lunch as well."

Kimball's office was in a two-story wooden building that housed several offices, including a dentist's office from which yelps of pain issued as Myka and Helena climbed the stairs to the second floor. Myka shuddered as an agonized howl erupted from the floor below, and even Helena seemed to flinch. As they walked along the hallway, looking for Kimball's office, a man passed them, cheerfully whistling. He stopped whistling long enough to point downstairs and say, "Doc Jones must have a new victim, pardon me, patient." He flashed them a grin that showed strong white teeth; he, apparently, was in no need of a dentist's services. Resuming his whistling, he tipped his hat to them. Helena waited until he had descended the stairs and then walked more quickly along the faded runner, opening a door at the far end. It opened onto an anteroom that served as the office for Kimball's secretary, furnished with a desk overburdened with files and ledgers and one straight-back chair in front of it. There was a door in the wall behind the desk, and Helena flew to it and twisted the knob. "Locked," she announced.

"What do we do now?" Myka opened one of the files. It contained invoices for supplies, and she just as quickly closed it. Anything left in public view wouldn't likely hold much interest for them. "Helena?"

"As I said, we improvise." Helena took a pin from her hair and crimped its end. Squatting in front of the door, she inserted the pin into the lock and began to twist it back and forth, a frown of concentration on her face. She took the pin out, crimped it into a different angle, and reinserted it into the lock. As the lock continued to resist her efforts, Myka half-expected Helena to start crooning to it as she had done with the printing press. But with a hissed breath and a sharp turn of her wrist, the lock clicked, and Helena opened the door, smugly smiling at Myka. "I shouldn't be in here long, but keep a watch for anyone coming this way."

Myka wandered in and out of the office, looking down the hallway. She silently urged Helena to hurry, and as she paced back and forth in front of the desk, she heard whistling. Peering around the doorway, she saw the man who had passed them earlier in the hallway jauntily striding toward Kimball's office. When he spotted her, his jauntiness evaporated and his features drew together in confusion. "Were you coming to see Mr. Kimball?"

"Yes, we came to see Mr. Kimball," Myka said too loudly, for Helena's benefit.

"I'm Mr. Adderley, Mr. Kimball's assistant," the man said, as he closed the distance between them with a slight jump to his step and accompanied her back into the office. "Perhaps I can be of help." He looked around the room, a puzzled half-smile on his face. "Where's your companion?"

Myka swallowed, hard. She sat down, uninvited, on the lone chair. They were to improvise, Helena had said. As she desperately tried to come up with an excuse for why Helena wasn't with her, she started to remember snippets from stories her father had published in newspapers years ago, and from those snippets she began to construct a story, a juryrigged one, but, with any luck, it would stand up long enough to enable her to get Helena out of Kimball's office. "She stepped outside for some fresh air," Myka said hastily. Too hastily? Mr. Adderley, as he sat behind his desk, was looking at her with a frankly curious stare. "She, my sister-in-law, that is, is rather easily overcome these days." Pausing, Myka let her mind flit to a farming accident her father had covered for a paper in Kansas. "Her husband, my brother," she stammered, "was in a terrible accident this summer. He was, uh, helping to raise a new barn, and the framing collapsed and crushed his legs."

"That is terrible," Mr. Adderley agreed sympathetically, but the puzzled half-smile reappeared.

He was wondering what the collapsing of a barn had to do with the railroad. She needed to come to the point. Ah, yes, the story about the milk cow, which had been in the Durand, Nebraska, _Bugle_. "And then just this past week, their milk cow was hit by a train. We were hoping, Helena and I, that the railroad might reimburse her for the loss of their cow."

Mr. Adderley no longer looked puzzled, but he didn't look sympathetic either. ''I'm sorry about the cow, but it's not the railroad's fault that the cow wandered onto the tracks."

Summoning the most innocent expression she could, she recited the aggrieved farmer's complaint in the _Bugle_. "It's not the cow's fault that she had to cross the tracks to get to her watering hole. If she could have, she would have demanded a cow crossing." Her father had chuckled over that bit, later claiming it was the only reason that he had published the story about the family's unsuccessful suit against the railroad.

Mr. Adderley didn't see the humor in it, tugging at his vest with a show of impatience. "I'm sorry, Miss?"

"Bering," Myka helpfully supplied.

"I'm truly sorry that your family has been visited by a series of misfortunes, Miss Bering, but it's not the railroad's responsibility to remedy any of them."

With a wail that sounded surprisingly realistic to her own ears, Myka pressed her fingers against unaccommodatingly dry eyes. "And Helena just learned that she's carrying their fourth child." Bless Tracy for sending her letter when she did. "Children need milk, Mr. Adderley. How can you be so heartless?" She buried her face in her hands, hoping she might be able to squeeze out a few tears. Her eyes still stubbornly dry, she tried out a tentative sniff.

Mr. Adderley came around the desk and awkwardly patted her shoulder. "There, there," he said. "It'll come around all right."

Fumbling in a pocket for a handkerchief she didn't have, Myka said with a faintness that wasn't entirely manufactured, "I believe I'm in need of some air. Would you be a gentleman and escort me downstairs?"

With a frantic look around the anteroom as though he might find someone to take her off his hands, he shook out a handkerchief and handed it to her. As she held it to her nose, he helped her to her feet and guided her to the stairwell. He hesitated, hoping she might release him, but as she sank a little against the railing, he sighed and took her arm and slowly descended the stairs with her. Fearing that she wasn't giving Helena a large enough margin to slip out of Kimball's office unnoticed, Myka leaned on Adderley's arm and whisperingly asked him to walk with her outside. She wasn't sure she had recovered sufficiently to traverse Bismarck's streets under her own power, she told him through the handkerchief. He reluctantly obliged her, walking with her along the wooden planking that served as a sidewalk.

They had gotten no farther than a surveyor's, only a few doors up from the building in which Kimball's office was located than Helena was calling to her, rushing from the opposite direction. "Dearest girl," she said, her arms outstretched.

As she had imagined the farmer's wife wailing it when she had recounted it for the _Bugle_ , Myka cried, "They won't give us our cow back,” and wrapped Helena in a sorrowful hug.

"And here I thought I had discovered all your hidden talents," Helena murmured in her ear.

"You said to improvise," Myka murmured in response.

Ending the hug but keeping her arm tight around Myka's waist, Helena said coldly to Mr. Adderley, "You should be ashamed, sir, for bringing my sister to tears." Shaking her finger at him, she thundered, "The good citizens of the Territory won't put up with this treatment much longer."

Before Helena could further declaim from her stage, Myka firmly turned her away from Mr. Adderley and led her down the sidewalk. "That was a little much, don't you think?"

"Not at all," Helena objected. "Because I have it, the guaranty, and something else as well. An agreement between the railroad and certain legislators that they will be given shares if they ensure there will be no impediments to the moving of the spur to Halliday." She patted the skirt of her dress. "It's all right here. And while there's a chance that Mr. Adderley will go looking for these documents, I rearranged the files in Kimball's office. He'll spend a long time looking for them."

They returned to the hotel and, once in Helena's room, sorted through the documents they had "borrowed," covering the bed with them. The legislators named in the agreement with the railroad included the legislators favoring the railroad's proposals in the committee meeting minutes. The story the documents told was a simple one. The railroad, as Helena had surmised, used its influence – and its money – to achieve its objectives, whether it was to pay lower taxes or to change the terms and locations of its service. As Helena picked up the papers and put them in her valise, the smugness and self-satisfaction her face had worn were replaced by worry. "Unfortunately corruption is just another form of business parlance. There will be no using this behind the scenes to apply pressure to MacPherson. I'll have to arrange to have this published in newspapers throughout the Territory and hope that public opinion will carry the day."

Sitting on a corner of the bed, Myka said, "But people need to know when their representatives aren't representing their interests. Helena, if word of these deals and secret arrangements won't stir the Territory to stop the railroad, what will?"

"Slow the railroad, not stop it." Helena joined Myka on the bed. "I'd prefer not to publicly expose MacPherson and his cronies since it will make them only the more likely to lash out in return, but I have no other leverage. The people I can turn to don't have the power to take on the MacPhersons of the world, not directly, and the people who do." She paused. "The people who do," she repeated with a grim smile, "would demand more than I'm willing to give." Helena took one of Myka's hands in her own and traced the lines of her palm, her touch feather-light. "This might be a very good time for you to visit your sister."

"I'm not going anywhere if you think there's going to be trouble." Myka turned her hand and locked her fingers with Helena's.

"Nothing will happen immediately. It will take time for an outcry to build, if one does. But if it happens and we're successful in thwarting his plan to move the branch line to Halliday, he will become vicious."

Freeing her hand to tilt Helena's chin toward her, Myka said, "And he's not been vicious enough already? He's hardly going to burn down the _Journal_ or ambush me or my father." Looking deep into Helena's eyes and seeing them fill with anxiety, Myka said as reassuringly as she could, "He likes to work from the shadows. There will be no shadows for him to hide in after this."

"He travels with shadows," Helena muttered, but she leaned in to kiss Myka lightly on the lips. "We should go down to the lobby to wait for your father before I think of other things we could do in the room besides fret."

They waited in the lobby, sitting expectantly in chairs redolent of tobacco, pomade, and shaving cream, and after that they waited in the restaurant next door, taking a very leisurely supper. It was no more palatable than their breakfast, the vegetables and meat distinguishable from each other only in that the vegetables were a lighter shade of gray. Myka nursed her cup of coffee for as long as she could before she reluctantly requested another, while Helena tussled with a piece of pie she had ordered. They remained at their table, drinking coffee, until the cook emerged from the kitchen to stare at them with his arms folded and the waiter started sweeping the floor, his broom almost brushing against their feet. Returning to the hotel lobby, they stood uncertainly in its center until Myka asked, "Where's the saloon that you had my father take Mr. Kimball to?"

"Myka," Helena pleaded.

"Where is it?" Myka guessed he was a bottle or more into a binge somewhere in town. With any luck he was conscious enough to still be upright and yet drunk enough to be easily led back to the hotel.

"It's called the Ace in the Hole and it's near the government offices, but—" Helena seemed to think better of whatever qualification she was going to add and bit her lip.

"But it's too fancy a saloon for my father to afford on his own or to feel comfortable in?" Myka finished Helena's thought without rancor. "There can't be that many saloons in Bismarck. It shouldn't take me too long to find him."

"Let me go with you," Helena said. "You shouldn't be doing this on your own."

"It would be better for all of us if you didn't go with me. I know how to handle myself in a saloon." A wry smile crossed Myka's face. "Remember?"

She left a visibly unhappy Helena in the lobby. Although Myka had the impulse to charge off in one direction or another, she knew a few minutes spent in reconnaissance would be the more practical option. She looked up and down the street; it was well into the evening, and the only buildings that would be showing any signs of activity would be the saloons and hotels. At one end of the street, just past the corner, she could glimpse a pool of light spilling into the main thoroughfare, and thinking that the source of the light was as good a place as any to start looking, she headed toward it. The light came from a boarding house, but the shrewd-faced woman who came to the tiny counter when Myka rang the bell directed her to a saloon that was midway between the hotel and the Ace in the Hole. The woman didn't seem to think it odd or unseemly that Myka was asking her where the town's saloons were. She didn't only divine Myka's mission but attempted to commiserate with her as well.

"I spent more than a few nights looking for my Ernie when I was your age. Sweet man when he was sober, but he never passed a saloon that he didn't enter. He's with the angels now, and all I can say is 'Thank the Lord' because he was a devil when he got a drink in him." She cackled and slapped the counter at her own humor. Offering the woman what she hoped would be received as a friendly nod, since she was afraid anything else might be taken as an unasked for judgment on Ernie, Myka left the boardinghouse with as much speed as she thought politeness would allow.

Myka found the saloon within a couple of blocks of the boarding house, and it resembled the Rusty Spur closely enough that the two could be set side by side and even Helena might have difficulty in telling them apart, same scarred poker tables, same smell of stale beer, same rumpled-looking bartender. And there was her father, all but passed out at one of the poker tables. He was half-sprawled over the table, head resting on an outstretched arm. Across from him sat another man wearing the slightly soiled finery Myka had come to associate with professional gamblers; the once-white boiled shirt, frayed at the cuffs, the string tie, also a little frayed, and the frock coat, of quality broadcloth but displaying a few stains. She looked at the pile of wadded bills and coins on the table; on the top was a train ticket, from Bismarck to Sweetwater.

"Everybody else had sense enough to leave, but he wanted to keep playing." The gambler wagged his head in an exaggerated show of disapproval.

"How much does he still owe you?" At the sound of Myka's voice, her father jerked in his chair and mumbled something that might have been "Go away" into his arm.

"More than you have, I imagine." The gambler appraised and dismissed her all in one glance. Taking the train ticket from the pile, he flicked it towards Myka. "Who the hell would want to go to Sweetwater?" he demanded of the nearly empty room and drummed his fingers on the table. "I suppose I could turn it in at the station and see if I could get any money for it. But I bet you need that ticket worse than I do."

"Let me take him back to the hotel, and I promise I'll return with what he owes you." Helena would loan her the money, although she already felt the plea lodge thick and dry in her throat.

"Can't let you do that. He's my surety." The gambler looked her over once more, this time with greater interest. "But there probably is something you can give me in exchange if you're willing to go upstairs with me."

"I'm not going to give you that," Myka said dryly.

A cool voice said from behind her, "But I can give you something." Helena passed her and circled the table until she stood in front him. "I can give you a reason for never needing to go upstairs with any woman again." She said it so silkily that the threat implicit in her words seemed to slide into him, like a stiletto, rather than cut through him at a stroke. He registered it late, his eyes growing wide as he stared at her. Then he shrugged it off, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head. "Mighty big words coming from a not-so-big woman," he said lazily.

"Big enough to do you harm," Helena said unsmilingly. "But I have a larger purse, and I'd rather settle this in a civilized manner." She took a drawstring bag from her skirt and placed a ten dollar gold piece on the table. "That should more than cover what he owes you."

"It squares things enough." He tossed the coin on the small pile of money. "Wouldn't mind going upstairs with you, if you were so inclined." He cockily grinned at her.

"But I'm not. I'm more inclined to take that gun you think you've so cleverly hidden behind your back or that knife you have in your boot and hurt you with it."

He laughed in surprise and said, "Well, you are a spitfire. How'd you spot my arsenal?"

"I've been in a few saloons and met a gambler or two." She hesitated. "If you were a gentleman at all, you'd offer to help us with him." She glanced toward Myka's father, who was mumbling again into his sleeve.

"Sadly, I'm not a gentleman." He mock-sighed. "But I'll get him back to your hotel for another one of those." He pointed to the gold coin.

Helena rolled her eyes but didn't decline the counteroffer. With another cocky grin, he gathered his money and stuffed it into his pockets. He approached Myka's father, still slumped across the table and, hooking an arm around his chest, hauled him to his feet. "Come on old man, look alive." Myka's father, once upright, began to totter, but the gambler steadied him and pulled one of the limp arms around his neck. "Lead the way," he grunted.

Helena and Myka walked ahead of the men and, although Myka was relieved that this situation with her father and a gambler had gone better than the last one, she was not a little irked that Helena had followed her, first of all, and then come to her aid, second. Also, she had to admit she didn't appreciate the gambler's flirting with Helena or the admiring glances he had been giving her in the saloon. "I didn't need to be rescued," she said stiffly.

"Because the stalemate you were in with him was part of your strategy?" Helena asked sardonically.

"I would've figured something out," Myka grumbled. "Besides, I thought I had made it clear that you weren't supposed to come with me."

"You didn't honestly believe I was going to wait for you in the hotel?" Helena demanded. "The last time you went into a saloon to find your father, a gambler trained his gun on you. I wasn't going to let that happen again."

Myka heard the puffing of the gambler behind them. Her father wasn't a large man, but, drunk as he was, he was dead weight. The stuttering scrape of boots on the planking told her that the gambler was having to drag her father with him. But she couldn't feel sorry for him, he was being excessively well paid for his work. "Have we bankrupted you on this trip, my father and I?" She had meant to say it jokingly, but the embarrassment in her words was clear.

"The money's nothing." Helena fumbled for Myka's hand and fiercely squeezed it. "When I say there are no limits where you're concerned that includes whatever I have."

They were at the hotel, and Myka encouraged her father to lift his leg – "Just a little bit higher"—and set his foot on the planking in front of the entrance. She had to remind him to do the same with his other leg. As she worked with her father to get him into the hotel, Helena paid the gambler. Once inside, possibly because he noticed that he was the object of the half-avid, half-pitying curiosity of the men smoking in the lobby's chairs, Myka's father walked to the staircase without assistance. Holding tightly to the railing, he pulled himself up stair by stair.

Myka followed closely behind, recognizing that if he were to fall backward, she and Helena would fly like bowling pins down the stairs. But while he weaved and sometimes faltered, he made it to the top of the staircase without a serious mishap. He staggered to his right, and Myka hurried to redirect him to his left. Letting her put her arm around him, he allowed her to guide him to their room. After Myka unlocked the door, he lurched to the bed and fell across it. But he struggled to a sitting position and blinked owlishly at Helena, who stood in the doorway. "Kimball. . .Kimball says the railroad's gonna put tracks. . . put tracks all across the Territory. Can't stop it." He wheezed out a laugh and moved a trembling finger back and forth, as if he were trying to point at her. "So high and al, al. . . so high and mighty, you think you. . . ." He coughed, snorted, and fixed bleary eyes on her. "It'll crush you." And after that pronouncement, he toppled over onto his side.

"Perhaps so," Helena said softly, "but not quite yet."

As Helena turned to go to her own room, Myka followed her. She caught Helena's arm. "Thank you, for what you did tonight, and thank you, for not holding this against him, or at least not adding it to everything that you already hold against him." Helena's only answer was to gently brush the back of her hand against Myka's cheek, which made it harder for Myka to say what she had to say next. "But riding in on your white horse whenever you think I need rescuing. . . . Helena, you have to trust me enough to let me solve my own problems. Trust me, talk to me. Don't push me aside, as if I'm no more than an onlooker in my own life. Promise?"

A faint smile flitted across Helena's face. "I promise that the next time I feel the irresistible urge to save you from your father's self-destructiveness, I will talk to you first." She leaned forward and grazed Myka's lips with a kiss. "Good night, love, I'll see you in the morning."

The door to Helena's room clicked shut, and Myka was still in the hallway, unhappily aware that Helena had just lied to her.

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter of what's really a two-part fic. Journey's End continues the story of this particular version of B&W. There is violence, real and implied, in this chapter, so beware, especially of the section that tells the tale of Helena's trip to MacPherson's ranch.

It took a while to build. Not in Sweetwater. Once the special edition of the _Journal_ was published, the town council met the next day to remove James MacPherson from his seat, and the townspeople, whether they met in the bank, the general store, or the Rusty Spur, could talk only of the disaster that they hoped was averted, that they hadn't even known existed, let alone needed to be averted, until the _Journal_ had explained the collusion between MacPherson, the legislators, and the railroad. But elsewhere the news seemed to be greeted with a collective yawn. Both Sweetwater and Halliday were tiny towns, almost lost in the long grass of the prairie, and whether the railroad went through one rather than the other was of no concern to other parts of the Territory. That legislators were taking bribes to vote in the railroad's favor was nothing new either. Serving in the legislature wasn't a full-time job or a well-paying one; many of the men were farmers, ranchers, and small businessmen who were taking time away from more important work to cool their heels for a few weeks in Bismarck. Why shouldn't they accept gifts when they were offered? It wasn't as though their votes mattered; the railroad would do want it wanted, regardless.

But then someone wrote a letter to the editor, not the _Journal_ 's editor but the editor of another small-town paper, noting that one of the legislators who was to receive shares of the railroad for voting to move the branch line was the governor's brother-in-law while another was the governor's cousin. That was the match that set the Territory ablaze with righteous indignation. It wasn't that the governor wasn't well liked or that people suspected that he, too, was in on the agreement, it was that promises made to a few ranchers or farmers who were still picking hay from their trousers when they arrived in Bismarck was one thing, promises made to legislators who already, it was thought, had the governor's ear, who already, it was suspected, benefited (somehow) from the largesse of businesses seeking the governor's favor, was another.

Within weeks there were calls for the legislators named in the _Journal_ 's article to resign, for MacPherson to be arrested for bribery, corruption . . . for something, and for the railroad, well, for the railroad to be less arrogant, less obvious in its machinations (no one lobbied for the railroad to be fined or otherwise punished because everyone knew who the real power in the Territory was). Although none of it happened – the legislators didn't resign, MacPherson wasn't arrested (was nowhere to be seen, in fact), and the railroad seemed to pay all the noise no mind – the plan to move the branch line to Halliday was scrapped. There was no general announcement, no release to the newspapers sent by Mr. Kimball, but somehow the word was put out that the railroad would continue to run its trains through Sweetwater. . . for the time being, anyway.

While a few people wrote letters to the _Journal_ expressing their gratitude for the efforts of its editor to "preserve Sweetwater's lifeline," as though Sweetwater, thousands of miles away from any ocean, would somehow managed to have drowned amidst grass and dirt and cattle had its station been closed, most treated the paper and the Berings as they always did, indifferently. And as for the paper's publisher, no one thanked Helena when they saw her on the street or spoke with her in the Spur. Which was fine with her. By the beginning of December, when the first snows had blanketed the town, the fact that Sweetwater had almost lost its branch line was no more to its citizens than the troubling remnant of a dream.

Helena didn't share the townspeople's complacency. As she walked to the Spur, one very cold, very snowy Saturday evening, she uneasily wondered, not for the first time, where MacPherson was and what he might be plotting. Telegrams sent to Mrs. Frederic asking her what her network had been hearing resulted in return telegrams stating that MacPherson hadn't yet surfaced in New York. Although she had always had mixed feelings about Leena's ability to see future possibilities, she had already asked her countless times what patterns she had been seeing, and Leena's response was always the same, "I see his, weaker but still dangerous." Perhaps it had been an unrealistic hope that the end put to his scheme to move the branch line to Halliday would also be an end to the threat he represented, but Helena had hoped for that. Trudging through the snow that inevitably made its way into her boots and lowering her head against the wind, she admitted that she was tired of the winter and it had hardly even begun. She was tired of never being able to feel warm, of seeing only the white of the snow and the ice-blue of the sky. She had fantasized, all too aware that it was only a fantasy, of taking a train south to Florida, once the mess with the branch line was over, and taking Myka with her. As a gust of wind made a mockery of her multiple scarves, numbing nose and lips and ears, she shivered and pushed away the thought. There would be no going anywhere until she knew that MacPherson had been defeated, and though she had no doubt that, despite everything else that had gone awry with the plans for the branch line, MacPherson's backers wouldn't have failed to claim the money owed them under the guaranty, she had no assurances that he didn't still have the means to hurt her. He would certainly have the desire.

Entering through the back of the saloon, she stamped her feet to shake off the snow and went to her office. Freddie had already started the potbellied stove that served to warm the room in the winter, and if you stood within a couple of feet of it, you could remain reasonably warm. Outside that perimeter, however, the room was cold, and Helena left her coat on when she sat down at her desk. She needed to go out on the floor and make a show of being gracious, all the while checking to see if there were any incipient fights brewing and if the card sharp who had replaced Nichols was dealing a fair hand. She would much rather return home, although it wasn't noticeably warmer than the Spur. Bricks seemed to work no better than wood at keeping the cold out, and while she had left every stove burning, when she did return home, she would change out of her dress and dive into her bed, which was heaped with extra quilts and blankets. But the saving grace was that Myka would be joining her.

She had clung to Myka these past weeks. Although she had always wanted Myka to come to her earlier than she did and to stay far later than Myka felt comfortable doing, she had become shameless in her attempts to prevent Myka from leaving her bed. She would coax, cajole, and plead, and because Myka didn't want to leave her either, Helena's attempts were usually successful, but sometimes Myka would look at her, something questioning and faintly concerned in her eyes, as if she sensed fear, as much as love, was behind all the entreaties. While Helena's unease had grown stronger since the special edition of the _Journal_ had been published, it had been at work in her even in Bismarck. She had decided to stay behind for an extra day, sending a relieved Warren Bering and a confused Myka back to Sweetwater without her. The matters that needed attending she could have attended to in Sweetwater, but Bismarck was a bigger town and, more importantly, it afforded her a greater privacy. She had gone to see an attorney in Bismarck to arrange for the disposition of her Sweetwater businesses, should certain events transpire, and she had sent several telegrams and letters to her attorney in New York providing instructions on how her investments and businesses were to be managed if she were no longer able to oversee them herself. It wasn't that she expected something awful to result from her interference with MacPherson's schemes, but she knew that a man capable of murder was capable of anything.

Reluctantly shrugging off her coat, she shook out the skirt of her dress and the multiple skirts underneath it. With all the extra layers she wore in winter, she felt like a swaddled baby, barely able to move her limbs, but the additional underskirts did little to keep the drafts away from her skin. Thinking she moved as inelegantly as an overladen merchant ship, wallowing from side to side, she made her way to the main part of the saloon. The cold weather had cut down on the number of cowboys willing to ride in from the ranches, but their absence was more than made up for by the presence of the men who lived in town. Helena thought there was hardly a man over 16 and under 80 who wasn't drinking or playing poker, and the haze of cigarette and cigar smoke was so thick that she could barely see Freddie behind the bar. Nothing like snow and bitter cold to drive a man from the loving, if close, so very close, confines of his home. Freddie gave her a nod as she neared him to let her know that everything was under control. None of the girls had been on the stairs, and they weren't to be seen on the floor, which suggested they were busy as well. Finding no reason to remain out among her patrons, although it was warmer out here if only because of the mass of bodies, Helena returned to her office. Only an hour or two more and then she could go home; maybe Myka would be waiting for her. She smiled at the image of Myka huddled under the covers, her hair spilling over her pillows, the curls seeming to spark even in the iciness of the bedroom.

Helena whiled away the time going over the account books, reviewing Freddie's and the girls' requests for supplies, and walking back and forth between her desk and the stove. Eventually Freddie stuck his head around the door and announced that he had ushered the last of the men from the bar. She took the night's earnings from him and deposited them on the desk. She should really sort through the bills and coins and count how much they had made while Freddie gave the bar area a cursory cleaning, but that could wait until tomorrow. She swept the money into a cash box and bent down to place it in a bottom drawer. When she righted herself in her chair, she saw MacPherson in the room.

She tried not to suck in her breath, but seeing him standing quietly in front of the stove was the equivalent of feeling his fist in her stomach. He looked little changed, in spite of the adverse change in his fortunes, still impeccably groomed and with a confident smile, albeit a small one, on his lips. He wore an overlarge fur coat, which made him appear bigger than he was and gave him the vaguely menacing air of a predator, a bear having slouched in to warm himself. He had moved as quietly as one.

"I underestimated you," he said. He pulled off his gloves and squeezed them between his hands, first the right hand, then the left. "All that work to maneuver the Donovans where I wanted them when I really should have seen to it that you were removed first." His gaze not leaving her, he used one hand to search a pocket of his coat. "You bested me." The smile hadn't changed, but Helena could feel the fury she saw in his eyes, it burned hotter in the room than the stove. "However, I never surrender a fight without drawing a little blood."

His hand came out of his pocket with a fistful of paper. As he approached her, Helena instinctively slid her chair back, looking for the rifle in the corner. "Oh, I'm not going to kill you. It wouldn't be safe to move like that against you now, but in the future, who knows?" He lifted his shoulders, a gesture which, under the heavy coat, was reminiscent of a bear hunching his shoulders, and Helena, despite his admission, wasn't sure but what he wouldn't lunge at her like a bear.

But he only placed the paper on the desk in front of her, giving the little collection a slap as he did so. Warily glancing at him, she began to turn over what were half-pages torn from account books and wrinkled scraps and soon realized what they were. Some were older than others, but they were all notes made out by Warren Bering. The amounts were small, by and large, but there were more notes than Helena had anticipated when she first saw the paper in MacPherson's fist. They were made out mainly to saloons, giving Myka's father credit for liquor, a kind of running tab, but there were notes to general stores and individuals as well. Notes he had had to issue when he had left his money on the poker tables, no doubt. Collectively they would total several hundred dollars, she estimated. Far more than the Berings could pay back if full payment on all of them was demanded at once. Not sure the mocking smile she was desperately trying to fix on her face was sufficiently mocking, perhaps it wasn't even a smile but a trembling upturning of her mouth, she swept the notes to one side, as if they were of no significance. "So you've been out playing debt collector all this time. How degrading, to corner every saloonkeeper Warren Bering might have encountered and to ask him if he would be willing to sell his note. I expected something grander from you."

"Actually I've had others out grubbing for me, and I've been at it far longer than you think." He stepped back from the desk and began to pull his gloves through his hands again, the only sign he wasn't quite as confident of his hold over her as he appeared to be.

"What do you want for them?" Helena knew it wasn't money, but she had to ask. "Two times their face value? Ten times?"

"Another man might have been sufficiently ashamed to stop gambling once his debts began piling up, but Mr. Bering doesn't have the strength of character of his daughter, does he?" He sighed insincerely. "And yet she continues to look after him, worry over him. I imagine time served in prison wouldn't be good for his health, although it would put a stop to his drinking. He looks like he's on his last legs the way it is; a drafty cell in a winter like this one, it would all but finish him off." He looked intently at Helena. "And your . . . friendship with her, it would suffer wouldn't it, were you to allow him to be carted off for what would be mere pennies to you? I'm sure Miss Bering would be stoic about it, feeling, ridiculously I think, that the law is the law and must be followed, but it would eat at her that no one, especially you, would save him. It takes a while for the ones more virtuous than the rest of us to admit to less-than-virtuous feelings, but when they do, they're as adamant in their refusal to forgive as they were in their belief that justice must be done. It wouldn't be right away, but eventually she would hold it against you."

His gloating had banked the fury in his eyes, and Helena, unable to look away from him, had never seen eyes turn so cold. She wouldn't have been surprised to see icicles forming on the ceiling and their breath to start frosting in the air. Helpless to stop herself from shivering, she crossed her arms over her chest and asked in a voice so flat and lifeless that she didn't recognize it as her own, "What do you want?" The only thing she could imagine that he would demand of her would be to ask a favor of Henry Tremaine, and no matter how galling she would find it, she would. Not that Henry would necessarily respond favorably or at all. But she knew MacPherson was right about the consequences of not trying to save Warren Bering from prison, if not about what it would do to Myka, then what it would do to her. Too stiff-necked to ask her for the money, Myka's father would gladly go to prison first. She had seen Myka almost take a bullet for him, and then she had watched Myka, yet again, heedlessly confront another gambler. Not to step in when she could, not to give MacPherson what he wanted in return for the notes, it might not gnaw at Myka, but it would gnaw at her. How could she respect herself, having seen what Myka was willing to sacrifice for that wretched old man, when she hadn't been willing to sacrifice her pride?

"You said once that even if you gave your favors away for free, I couldn't afford you," MacPherson said. "Can I afford you now, Mrs. Wells?"

Helena stared at him. That was what he wanted when there were other things of greater value that she could give him? Not many, but a few. Surely he was joking, one last twist of the knife before he shoved it in to the hilt. As if he understood her confusion, he said, "I tried to think of what I could extort from you that would hurt you the most. I imagined you on your knees begging some boon from Henry Tremaine, but then I imagined you on your knees begging me to stop." His smile became a grin. "Or continue. You might like it, you know." Advancing, he planted his hands on the desk and pushed his face within a few inches of hers. "You always thought you were above me, so let me remind you of what you really are. You may have saved Sweetwater, but you'll always be just a whore to the town. As you are to me."

She wanted to flinch, his breath was so foul. It was if the corruption inside him was forcing its way out, but she didn't shrink back against her chair, although she also couldn't stop shivering. He seemed to believe that she took all the trappings that marked her station as a reflection of what she thought she had surmounted, what she thought she had become, as if the fine home and the fine clothes were a chrysalis from which she had emerged transformed. She was no longer Emily Curran or Emily Lake or Charlotte Ramsey, but Helena Wells, a businesswoman and churchgoer, and, despite being unheralded as such, the town's savior. He had no way of knowing that Helena Wells had been a whore longer than his knowledge of her history would suggest. He didn't know about Christina or the money she had taken for her. And as long as he thought that spreading her legs for him would be the worst thing she could imagine doing, there was the chance that his vengeance would stop there.

The revulsion she felt at the thought of him touching her was real, and she let it show. Just as the disgust that riddled her voice was also real and just as necessary to express. "You'll have to excuse me if I don't immediately agree to your terms. I am not livestock put up for bid."

He leaned over the desk and gathered up the notes. After he stuffed them in his coat pocket, he casually put on his gloves, taking deliberate care to wriggle each finger to the end. "Oh, but you are, you've only pretended otherwise. All the same, I understand the need for you to think this through. And I'll enjoy imagining how desperately you'll be trying to come up with something else to offer me. But only for a week. One week from today you're either at my home, or I'll call in his debts." Not just a confident but a triumphant smile this time. "In case you're considering ways to get at these notes, rest assured, I have left nothing to chance. Even were you to snatch that rifle and hold it on me while you burned the notes in that stove, I'd still be able to call in his debts. You may be a whore, but you're a clever one, I'll grant you that."

By the time Helena wearily mounted the stairs to her bedroom, it was past three o'clock. She had stayed in the office long after MacPherson had left (through the back door, she assumed, just as he must have entered the Spur), stayed long enough for the fire to die in the stove, stayed long enough not to think of the counteroffers that MacPherson had imagined she would but to convince herself that she could tell no one of his visit, not Leena and certainly not Myka. Both of them, for different reasons or perhaps the same ones – she was too numb with cold to care – would be against her surrendering to his terms. But it wasn't so much to give him, not if he would consider the debt paid. There was no guarantee that he would, of course, but, short of killing him, it was her only option. She wasn't sure she had let worse men have her, though feeling Kincaid on her had always made her scrub twice as hard to clean herself once it was over, but the experience itself wouldn't be new, no matter what he did to her, no matter what he made her do to him. The clock in the library chimed the half-hour as Helena carefully opened the door to her room. A lamp was still burning on the nightstand, and Helena could see Myka's sleeping form in its glow. She undressed as quietly as she could, leaving her clothes in a tangled pile on the floor. She would deal with them tomorrow as she would with everything else that wasn't Myka. Pulling her nightgown over her head, she slid under the covers, trying not to let her frozen hands or feet touch the warm center of the bed. But Myka murmured at the disturbance, though her eyes remained shut, and she automatically reached for Helena's arm to pull it around her waist. Helena let Myka draw her in, and she nuzzled the cool mass of Myka's hair. She wouldn't sleep, she knew, but she would hold Myka and be held by her, and that was worth more than anything MacPherson could demand of her.

#####

Because she had spent a good portion of her life pretending emotions she didn't feel, Helena didn't find it as hard as she had anticipated pretending that certain emotions weren't on the verge of overwhelming her, rage and fear being primary among them. Impulsive she often was, but not this time. It was too important to be so. . . self-indulgent, so reckless as to grab a gun and shoot him. For her to ensure the Berings' safety and Claudia's too, she needed to keep a cool head. To prevent MacPherson from suspecting that she was capitulating too easily, she sent a messenger out to his ranch on Tuesday morning with a letter imploring him to name any sum of money, any favor she could ask of Henry. She received the expected response the next day. He awaited her "visit" no later than Saturday evening. While a part of her was tempted simply to ride out to the ranch Thursday afternoon and get it over with, she also knew it would play to her advantage to wait until Saturday evening, to underscore how much she dreaded being with him.

So she waited. And she talked to Leena as she normally did, in their usual chidingly affectionate way, and she went to the Spur as she normally did and she stopped in at the _Journal_ as she normally did. And what was hardest of all she behaved with Myka as she normally did. The clinging disappeared and in its place she let urgency drive her. That was what Myka had grown accustomed to, although she would have little way of knowing that Helena's urgency to be with her, no, more than that, Helena's urgency to take her, to hear Myka cry out and feel the long length of her as Myka arched against her was fed as much or more by the foreboding sense that none of this would ever happen again than by desire. It wasn't, in the end, the rage or the fear that almost undid Helena, but the grief that would sometimes override both, as if, on some level, she knew she had lost Myka at the very moment she was in her, feeling Myka's muscles contract around her fingers as Myka strained and moaned beneath her. She felt it the most strongly when she was with Myka, but she felt it at other times as well, when she laughed with Leena over some mishap in the kitchen, one that Helena invariably had caused but only Leena knew how to fix (or get rid of), or when she walked into the Spur of an afternoon and saw the girls desultorily playing cards as they waited for the evening. She never thought she would grieve the Spur, yet that was the only way she knew to describe the feelings of regret and aching fondness that washed over her when she glimpsed Freddie in his impossibly soiled apron. Telling herself that she was being morbid, that things would sort themselves out after Saturday, was of no help.

She must have given herself away to Leena. It was preferable, albeit irritating, to think that than to think that Saturday night with MacPherson was significant enough for Leena to be "reading" it as a change in a pattern. And not as a good one. Helena was bundling herself against the cold – the closer Saturday drew the more errands she invented for herself to cease dwelling on it – when Leena slowed her descent of the stairs and said in an odd voice, "Helena, what are you hiding from me?" There was more than tension in Leena's expression, there was alarm.

Helena debated whether she should try to bluff her way out of the question. But another look at Leena's face advised her that the less difficult course of action was to confess a part of the truth, enough, with any luck, to satisfy her but not so much that it only prompted further questions. "I had had hopes that our success in ending his plans for the branch line might have driven MacPherson underground. I've since learned that he's alive and well at his ranch. It worries me that he could be out there hatching plots." Helena wrapped one more scarf around her neck and started to waddle toward the front door, her layers of woolen undergarments both scratchy and bulky.

"Whatever you're planning to do, don't do it." Leena hurried down the remaining stairs and caught Helena's mittened hand as it fumbled at the doorknob. "Remember when I said things were out of kilter? Whatever you're going to do will make it worse." At Helena's blank stare, she added, "I know it has something do with Myka, and I know you're not going to tell me what it is, but you have to believe me, Helena, when I say that very bad things are going to happen if you follow through on any plan you've concocted."

"Darling," Helena said with an exasperation that wasn't entirely affected, "I've concocted nothing, and unless you tell me that what you're seeing or sensing involves any danger to Myka, I will continue to concoct nothing."

"Not Myka, you," Leena almost shouted. "Something terrible, I don't know what, is going to happen to you."

Helena smiled gently, taking off her mitten and cupping Leena's face in her hand. "But you've always known that, am I right?" The look of surprise that crossed Leena's face was followed by a flush. "I know my legends, Leena. I know what happens to the poor fools sent out to battle the monsters. Only one ever comes back."

"It was always a possibility," Leena admitted. Her voice grew insistent as she said, "But only one among others. Until now. Whatever you've already done and whatever you're planning to do – Helena, don't do it. We'll find another way."

"If there had been another way, neither one of us would be here. You'd be baking cookies with Josie in Mrs. Frederic's kitchen, and I would still be with Henry or playing the eccentric aunt to Christina." She gave Leena's cheek a quick pat before opening the door. It was much easier to do without a mitten. "I'm not sorry I came here, no matter what happens." Leena didn't say anything more, and Helena almost winced at how the sound of the door closing between them seemed to give an air of finality to their conversation. It cracked the air like a gunshot, and Helena fervently hoped it wasn't a symbol of how Saturday evening would end.

It wasn't entirely true to say Saturday afternoon arrived without her knowing it, but the last few days had passed in a blur, the only things standing out in them, her tense exchange with Leena and, later, the conversation with Myka that almost devolved into an argument. She hadn't intended to say anything at all about her whereabouts on Saturday evening, thinking that if things went as she hoped they would, she would explain away her absence later. But on Saturday morning, as Myka slipped on skirts and chemises, all horribly gray with age, and then tugged an equally old blue dress over them, Helena found herself saying, "You should stay home tonight." And then once she had said something foolish like that, she had to come up with a reason why. "Freddie thinks one of our suppliers has been cheating us, and I'll be working through our books and receipts, probably late into the evening, to see if he's right."

It sounded reasonable to her, but Myka, examining a tear in one of the seams of her dress, said, "I don't care how late you are."

"It'll most likely be dawn by the time I get home, and that's usually when you leave."

"I don't care if I see you for only five minutes." Myka said it with the calm stubbornness of someone for whom love was reason enough to do anything.

"But I care," Helena said, wondering how she was going to get out of this. "Please, Myka, just stay home." That wasn't the best thing to say to nip a burgeoning argument in the bud.

Myka stopped examining the tear and turned her head, and Helena had the feeling that if the room were lighter, she would see eyes as cool as Myka's voice. "Then tell me the real reason why you don't want me here."

"I've told you the reason why," Helena protested. "It'll be late, this house will be frigid, and I'll probably want to drink a brandy or two in the library to put the night behind me." All very true, especially the last.

"All right, you've made your point." Her tone wasn't any warmer, but she was back on the bed kissing Helena on the forehead, eyelids, nose, and, finally, mouth. While Helena wasn't certain the matter had been completely resolved, she wasn't going to press. She would spend the rest of her life, if she was allowed to, making up to Myka for something she devoutly hoped Myka would never discover.

But she wouldn't let herself think about Myka on the ride out to MacPherson's ranch. Myka could be no part of it, of what was going to happen. There wasn't much she could bear to think about, so she didn't think at all, concentrating instead on guiding the sleigh through the snow and trying to keep her hands and feet free of frostbite. The night was crisp and clear, the stars mercilessly bright. Far sooner than she wanted to, she saw the lights of MacPherson's home, and as soon as she neared the house, one of his men materialized out of the darkness to slow the sleigh and, after she climbed down from the seat, to take her place and direct the horses toward the barn. A servant already held the door open for her, and she could picture MacPherson standing behind a window, looking out at her and enjoying what he thought would be her discomfort and embarrassment. He must have let everyone on the ranch know she was coming; he wasn't going to let her sneak in unannounced, he was going to make her run a gauntlet of his devising. But she didn't care who saw her, because once the sleigh had passed through the gates, she herself was no more than a spectator of Helena Wells. That woman who graciously acknowledged the woman holding the door for her, who thanked the other one for helping her to remove her coat, the woman who brightly, with a little trilling laugh, asked MacPherson how he was surviving the cold, she was a performer playing the role. She was Emily Curran or Emily Lake or Charlotte Ramsey, who existed only to please someone else.

MacPherson seemed puzzled as he led her up the staircase. "You're in a much better frame of mind than I had anticipated."

"An unhappy whore is an unsuccessful one," she said lightly, finding it difficult, nevertheless, to look at him. That had never been a problem before. If she couldn't look at him, she wouldn't be able to get through the evening. She raised her eyes to his, hoping hers were as unfathomable.

His bedroom was no less ostentatious than the rest of his home. It was larger than she remembered Henry's being and much more opulently furnished. The bed, the wardrobe, the bureau, all were massive, and she thought she might have been able to lay lengthwise in the fireplace without having to bend her knees. There was a small table in front of the fire, set with fruit and cheese and a bottle of wine. Apparently he intended to make this an event, when she all she wanted to do was undress and try to clamber into his enormous bed. He held out a chair for her, and she masked her displeasure and perched on its edge. After pouring her a glass of wine, he sat across from her. He was wearing a dressing gown, fashioned from a luxurious velvet, loosely belted over a flawlessly white shirt and black trousers. She was dressed well, but there was nothing especially memorable about the dress or the jewelry she wore with it. There was only so much she was willing to concede to his vanity.

"You must tell me what you do to make a man spend $10,000 for a night with you."

There had never been any truth to that story. She had never serviced an Astor nor had any man paid $10,000 for a night with her, not to her knowledge. But if MacPherson believed such rubbish, all the better. She might not be worth $10,000 a night, but she was better than anyone he would have been with before. "It would be easier to show you," she said, rising from her chair.

But she barely had time to show him anything, she had no sooner undressed and slipped under the covers than he was on top of her – and done. He hadn’t even had time to part her legs, he had spent himself on her stomach. He had been too eager, which seemed to be something of a constant about him. He had been too eager to broker a deal with the railroad and its shareholders before he had the land to sell them, and then he had been too eager to remove the family who owned the land. As anger and humiliation darkened his face, she schooled her expression. She had learned to take her cues from her client to know whether she should be sympathetic or teasing, scolding or indifferent. No matter which face she showed, he would blame her, they always did. With some men, she could be playful and coax them back into action, whereas others would need to storm and bluster. And with others. . . .she was able to turn her head quickly enough to catch most of the slap on her jaw. It rocked her head, and she felt that she had bitten her tongue in half, but it could have been worse. He could have slapped her again, as had happened to her a few times in the past, but the arm that was coming toward was reaching for the back of her neck and forcing her face to his. "You're going to have to do a better job of showing me why you were Henry Tremaine's favorite whore."

While she had always taken pride in her knowledge of how to please a man – being a whore was no different from finding the flaw in a machine or inventing something to make a process more efficient in that she wanted to do it better than anyone else - she exhausted every trick she knew trying to tease MacPherson into a state that might promise consummation before the night was over. When at last he rose above her and she thought, with both weariness and relief, that she had done enough, that she had fulfilled her part of their arrangement, he faltered again, and he looked at his shrinking member with such frustration that she didn’t bother to suppress her laughter. She knew that it would only enrage him, but she didn’t care, because no matter what happened now, she knew he would never make good on it, this devil’s bargain of an agreement, if he had ever intended to. He would call in Warren Bering's debt, and she would be helpless to stop him. Unless she killed him, which didn't strike her as extreme but only as impractical since she was naked and pinned beneath him at the moment. She wasn't laughing only at him but at the horrible error in judgment her coming to the ranch had turned out to be. He slapped her again, and the force of it drove her head into the pillow. She gingerly touched her lips.

"They're not bleeding," he said dismissively. "You'll know when I really want to hurt you."

"Now I understand why I've never seen Mrs. MacPherson here for a visit." Helena pointedly let her gaze drop below his waist. "She's had so very little to miss." When he raised his hand again, she said as bluntly and contemptuously as she could, although she knew she trying to burrow deeper into the bed in anticipation of what was to come, "Fuck me or hit me, it's all the same to me."

The latter he could do, and Helena was thankful that he didn't aim the majority of his blows at her face. But even that didn't seem to satisfy him, and when there was a hesitant knock at the door, he said to her, with a petulance she knew better than to mock, "We're not done. I'm not through with you yet."

He shrugged on his dressing gown and opened the door a crack. She couldn't hear the exchange, not clearly, but it was obvious that the interruption had annoyed him. He slammed the door and put on his shirt and trousers with a rough haste, accompanied by a string of curses. Another slam of the door, and he was gone, and she thought then of dressing and trying to make her escape, but her wild roaming of the house months ago had left her with no helpful memory of the house's exits, with the exception of the front door, and for all she knew, he would be standing in front of it. She thought too of lying in wait for his return. She could hide behind the door with a poker or the wine bottle from the table and attack him as he entered, but other than giving her a momentary satisfaction, she wasn't sure what it gained her. Though she had had fleeting thoughts of murdering him, she had no desire to hang or go to prison, and that was assuming she was lucky with her first swing. To deliver only a glancing blow or to miss entirely would be deadly for her.

She knew it was foolish to pretend that the disastrous course of the evening could be altered, but, if he returned in a better mood, she might be able to persuade him by some means she hadn't yet tried to get him to release the notes. He might change his mind about having her beg a favor from Henry or making her pay ten, twenty, fifty times the face value of the notes. She would do either one without hesitation. He considered himself a businessman, and she knew how to strike a bargain; she needed only to come up with a proposal that would pierce his wounded vanity. Wincing, she drew her knees to her chest – she would be covered in bruises by the morning - and began to review, in detail, every asset she could claim.

Her dread at his return began to dissipate as she recalled each one of her investments, every stock, bond, and certificate. As the night wore on and he didn't come back, she caught herself double counting the value of her holdings, and though she tried to remain alert, she grew drowsy. Her last thought was that she would give him everything she owned, except her interest in the Wells mills and factories (that was Christina's), if he would leave the Berings alone. When she woke, MacPherson still hadn't returned to the room, and enough time had passed for the fire to have burned itself to embers. She couldn't explain her apprehension, but it had her tumbling out of the bed and flinging open the doors to his wardrobe, searching for something she could wrap herself in. Finding a robe, she belted it around her waist and crept, barefoot, along the hall and down the staircase.

The house was dark and cold and quiet. Parlors yawned emptily on either side of her. Turning around, she followed a hallway that led toward the back of the house. Underneath one of the doors there was the faintest, thinnest pencil of light. She pressed her ear to the door but heard no voices behind it. She tentatively entered the room, which resembled her own library but for the fact that everything in it was twice as big, the desk, the overstuffed chairs, the sofa. The lamp burning on the corner of the desk seemed too small for the room in comparison and it did create more shadows than it chased away. Helena picked it up, moving it in an arc to see more of the room. Toes digging into the rug for warmth, she passed the desk, feeling absurdly like a miner waving his light in shaft. Only there was nothing precious to be unearthed here, except, possibly, for the notes Warren Bering had issued.

And Claudia. Just beyond the desk she sat on her heels at the side of a man lying on the floor. MacPherson. Claudia didn't look up as Helena knelt beside her, but she said, "I didn't do it." She was holding a miniature marble bust of a Roman, Caesar of course, and the base of it was coated with something dark. Helena bent over MacPherson's body and tentatively touched the back of head, feeling splintered bone and blood. "I didn't do it," Claudia repeated as Helena gently worked the bust out of her hands.

"Shshshsh." Helena was uncertain whether Claudia recognized her. She had repeated "I didn't do it" with the vague, bewildered quality of someone wakened from a dream.

"I didn't do it," Claudia said for a third time. "I was going to." And as she looked down, almost absently at the trousers she was wearing, Helena saw the gun tucked underneath her waistband. "But he was already dead." Her eyes flashed up at Helena, and, as if realizing that she was no longer alone, she began stammering, her voice high-pitched and frightened and very, very young. "There was a man here with him. I couldn't see him very well, but I could tell they were arguing, and then MacPherson, he fell to the floor."

Helena set the bust down and pulled Claudia to her, holding her and smoothing her hair. "What brought you here, sweet girl? What were you doing out on a night like this?" She rested her cheek against Claudia's head.

Wriggling against the embrace, but only because she was searching her pockets, Claudia unfolded her fingers to reveal a man's ring, silver, set with a black onyx. Joshua's. "One of the boys decided he wanted Rudy's bunk, and he found it under the mattress. The night of the grass fire, Myka was asking all these questions about Rudy. He had come from MacPherson's though I didn't remember it then. But once I saw the ring. . . I had heard all the rumors, you know, about MacPherson being after our land." She burrowed into Helena's shoulder, pushing the ring back into a pocket. "I was going to wait until everyone was asleep, and then I was going to sneak upstairs and kill him. Only this house never sleeps," she burst out plaintively. "The lights never went out upstairs, and then he was with that man in the library, and it was too late."

Cooing to her, as if she were a fretful infant, Helena continued to smooth Claudia's hair. She didn't know if there had been a man in the library with MacPherson, or if Claudia had invented him whole cloth to be the agent of something she herself had done. There was something still unfocused in her expression, as if this were some past event so old that she was having difficulty remembering it. By tomorrow the man in the library with MacPherson could be two men or a woman or no one at all. "I hid out there," Claudia said, twisting in Helena's arms and pointing to the wall opposite them. Helena looked over her shoulder at the wall. It had several large windows, which extended nearly to the ceiling. The two in the center were actually doors that opened onto a terrace, or what she assumed was a terrace. It remained too dark to make anything out, but Helena recognized that dawn wasn't far off. The sense that everything was in suspension, waiting for the first glimmer of light, was unmistakable. She needed to get Claudia away from the house before the servants stirred and the hands started their rounds of chores.

"How did you get here?" Helena rubbed Claudia's arms. She looked so cold in her too-big coat and trousers, and the room was arctic, far colder than the rest of the house. Helena thought she could see an icy puff following each of her words. Craning her head over her shoulder again, Helena looked harder at the doors, one of which looked to be slightly ajar. It explained both the coldness of the room and how Claudia had entered the house.

"I rode my horse. The barn is so big, and no one was around, so I left her there."

Helena frowned. If one of the hands was already up and had gone to the barn. . . . she needed to get Claudia out, now. Untucking her legs and stiffly pushing herself up, Helena urged Claudia to stand up with her. She couldn't guess at how long Claudia had been in the library, and she suspected that if she asked, Claudia wouldn't be able to tell her. She led her to the doors, buttoned Claudia's coat and helped her put on her mittens, with the brisk efficiency she dimly remembered applying to the dressing and undressing of Christina. "You need to hurry, quick like a mouse. Get on your horse and ride for home as fast as you can. And you must tell no one, not even Mr. Jinks, that you were here. No one." Claudia nodded, but the gesture was too automatic for Helena to trust it. Tipping Claudia's chin, she looked intently into dark eyes that were looking through her rather than at her. "Claudia," Helena said with emphasis, "tell no one. Ever."

Claudia blinked, and she smiled conspiratorially. "Like when I told you about stealing Artie's spectacles and using the lenses for an experiment? And you said you would never tell?"

"Yes," Helena responded, although she had no memory of such a confession or her own promise not to reveal it. Seeing an opportunity to build on it, however, she said, "To this day I've never told anyone."

"Not even Leena or Myka?"

Perhaps it was the way Claudia had asked it, her wondering disbelief, much like her patient acceptance of Helena's buttoning of her coat and putting on of her mittens, so much that of a child. Or perhaps it was hearing Myka's name and realizing that, from this moment on, she would have so very little to share with her. Helena waited until she was sure she could keep her voice steady and then said as reassuringly as she could, "No one."

Claudia hadn't asked her why she was there or wearing only a robe, and before Claudia could think to ask those questions, Helena gave her a push out the door, hissing, "Remember, quick like a mouse." A crunch of boots on the snow, and a few seconds later a small form, already blending into the night, was running to the end of the terrace.

Returning to MacPherson's body, Helena crouched and ran her fingers over his battered skull. The blood was thick and cold to the touch, and bile rose in her throat as she coated her hands in it. Unsure whether it was truly necessary, since no one would question what the scene looked like, especially Sheriff Lattimer, who was thorough but unimaginative, she pressed her fingers to her cheeks, the base of her jaw, the skin below her collarbone. She dabbed at the collar of the robe, leaving spots of blood there as well. Picking up the bust, she was about to call for the servants when she saw a scattering of papers on the desk. Looking at them more closely, she recognized Warren Bering's notes. Had MacPherson been planning to take these upstairs and taunt her with them? She exchanged the bust for the lamp and took it and the notes to the fireplace. She used one of the notes as a taper, forcing it down the chimney of the lamp until its edges began to blacken and then placed it on top of the other ones. They caught fire quickly, but Helena until they were ash before she turned away from them. MacPherson had boasted that destroying the notes wouldn't prevent him from calling them due. Perhaps his estate would pursue Warren Bering to the ends of the earth to press a dead man's claim, but Helena suspected that his attorneys would have more important matters to address. Such as the lawsuit Sweetwater's town council had been threatening to bring against him.

She hefted the bust, it was heavy to hold, heavy but relatively small; a woman could as easily bludgeon someone with it as a man, and Helena pictured an agitated Claudia, forgetting the gun she had brought with her as she confronted MacPherson and reaching blindly for what was at hand. Or maybe the man she said she had seen had grabbed the bust and swung it in a fit of temper. Helena couldn't help but remember MacPherson being called away, but she just as quickly shook her head. It didn't matter what Claudia saw or thought she had seen – she had been here, and that was what Helena had to make sure was buried.

Opening the door, she shouted for someone to come and kept shouting until an elderly woman shuffled toward her, the blanket she had wrapped around herself trailing behind her. Her face creased in a frown of unwelcome recognition when she saw Helena, and Helena realized this was the woman she had waved her rifle at when she had broken into the house after the grass fire. It was just as well that the old woman would have nothing good to say about her when she was inevitably questioned about what had happened at the MacPherson ranch.

Noticing the blood on Helena's hands and the bust she was holding, the woman asked with an apprehensive quaver, "Where is Mr. MacPherson?"

"He's met with an unfortunate accident, I'm afraid," Helena said, convinced that however she informed people of MacPherson's death she would be too flippant or offhand or casual. But how was a murderer supposed to sound? Any shock she had felt at seeing his body had worn off, and she couldn't deny that she was glad he was dead. Yet she could only imagine the look of horror on the woman's face were she to give expression to her relief, and Helena needed the woman to remain sufficiently composed to send for Sheriff Lattimer. So she said with as much matter of factness as she could muster, "Mr. MacPherson is dead. You had best send a rider for the sheriff." Leaving the woman gape-mouthed behind her, Helena shut the library door.

Curling up on one end of a sofa, Helena wished that MacPherson had been killed in a warmer room. A crocheted throw was hanging over the sofa's back, and Helena pulled it over her, noting how dainty and feminine it appeared in such an excessively masculine room. Perhaps Mrs. MacPherson had made it for him, perhaps she would be inconsolable upon hearing the news. There had to be someone who had loved him, who would grieve his absence; there must have been one angel who mourned when Lucifer was cast into hell. To be that alone. . . .

She remembered that winter morning when her mother had entered her room as she was dressing, how she had stared at the protruding belly, which had been for Helena only a minor source of irritation – since she was having to ask one of the maids to keep letting her dresses out – and a reminder that she was eating too many sweets, and how her mother had laughed, although there was something both grim and pained about it that suggested to Helena it wasn't really a laugh at all.

"From the moment you could walk, you have been the most headstrong, willful, and obstinate of children," her mother said, and Helena only half-paid her any mind because she had heard those words or their variants before, as a precursor to some punishment she would have to endure for having broken one of her mother's innumerable rules of proper behavior.

But her mother's next words were entirely new, and Helena had felt each one as a slap, they stung so sharply. "I swear that you are a changeling, and my real daughter stolen away, because you are the devil's spawn destined to bring this family only shame and ruination. Whose bastard are you carrying?"

How clearly she could hear her mother's voice this morning, more clearly than she had in years. And now she could respond as the stricken 17-year-old Helena had been too distraught to do. At last, Mother, I have truly lived up to your expectations of me.

 

 


End file.
